Learning Outcomes

TopThis is a skills-based course that focuses on the interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics that impact leadership. Participants are encouraged to clarify their own leadership direction and personal motives so they may make effective progress in pursuing their ambitions while avoiding typical areas of derailment. The classroom is used for both didactic learning, e.g., of diagnostic tools for analyzing interactions in case studies and in class, and for practicing new strategies of action. Other sources of learning include readings, lectures, plenary discussions, small group work, film, and cases provided by participants’ of their experience with leadership challenges.

Prerequisites

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Syllabus

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PP5209: EXERCISING LEADERSHIP
“XL”
COURSE OVERVIEW AND SYLLABUS
ACADEMIC YEAR 2014 – 2015

January 11^th, 2015
TEACHING TEAM

Instructor
Jonathan Marshall, PhD
jmarshall@nus.edu.sg

Teaching Assistant
Rizky Novrianto, BE
chronov@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION

Leadership is dangerous. It requires surfacing tough issues and challenging people to change for the hope of improvement. As that typically involves generating friction, it is normal to accept the status quo rather than take on the risks of progress. This course is designed to develop your practical skills at making that progress.

You will learn to diagnose leadership challenges, to exercise effective leadership even in risky situations, and to avoid unnecessary penalties for your efforts. You will examine materials from psychology, political science, philosophy, business management, and, most importantly, adaptive leadership. These will be communicated partly through traditional methods: lectures, readings, and film. As this is primarily a pragmatic course, significant emphasis will be placed on:

your past personal leadership challenges – to see what insights they can provide;
your personal ambitions and drive – to identify strengths and areas of vulnerability;
the current interpersonal dynamics in the class – to illuminate tendencies you have that influence your ability to exercise effective leadership in real world settings.

CAVEAT
In 2010, three of the most acclaimed leadership instructors in the world said this course could not be successfully taught in Asia. I am mindful of their concern and, hence, I am keen to work with students who are willing to make a sincere, personal commitment to improve their leadership skills. They will need to overcome challenges inherent in the unusual teaching method of this course so that we, together, create a valuable and enriching experience.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that while I have found each run of this course very challenging, it has received positive reviews. Thanks to the quality of each year’s cohort, it has become very clear this course can be taught effectively in Asia.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. 1
CLASS TIMINGS................................................................................................... 3
MEETING DETAILS............................................................................................... 4
REQUIREMENTS.................................................................................................. 6
SUBMISSIONS..................................................................................................... 9
GUIDELINES........................................................................................................ 9
APPENDIX A: COURSE READINGS........................................................................ 10
APPENDIX B: CHECKLIST FOR SUBMISSIONS........................................................ 16

CLASS TIMINGS

Shopping Week

The shopping week class will be 2pm – 2.25pm on Monday 12^th January at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, MM3-5.

Plenary (regular class)

Unless otherwise stated, classes will start at 2pm in MM 3-4 and will end at 5.30pm.
As classes will typically last half an hour longer than normal, we will end the semester early.
Two plenary sessions will be held off-campus, outside the regular class period. Depending on the dates of these, we may end the course earlier than anticipated. They will be confirmed by 23^rd January. Our last class will be no later than 13^th April.

Small Groups

From January 27^th to March 20^th, you will meet weekly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays, for 1½ hours in your Small Groups. The only exception is Recess Week when there will be no Small Group meeting.

Films

Two films will be screened. You are welcome to watch them on your own, rather than with the class. However, you are required to complete each of them before the class following the official viewing date.

Black Harvest at 7:00pm on February 11^th
As It Is in Heaven, 2pm on March 23^th (during our regular class slot)

MEETING DETAILS

As this course is highly interactive, plenary and Small Group meetings are mandatory. Optional individual coaching outside class with the instructor is available, and encouraged.

1. Plenary Meeting Requirements

As class time is designed to be interactive, electronic devices, e.g., laptop, tablets, and other forms of telecommunications are prohibited. Writing notes, e.g., with a pen, is fine.
If confidential information is shared in class, respect the source by keeping that information private.
Do not leave class early during class time without the instructors' consent.

2. Small Group Meeting

After Lecture 3, each Small Group will meet six times for 1½ hours. These will be weekly meetings with the exception of Recess Week. If you are in a group of more than six people, you are welcome to meet a seventh time and write a reflection paper on that meeting which will receive comments and a grade.

Documents to guide you on how to run the meeting are available in the XL-Box, in the folder Small Group Information. There will also be weekly questions in that folder to guide your reflection paper. The first set of questions is RP 1 Questions.

The purpose of these meetings is to help you:

Apply lessons from the class to your experience,
Explore these lessons with group members in order to investigate effective ways of exercising leadership,
Analyze leadership and group dynamics both outside and inside your Small Group.

There will be three formal roles in the meetings:

The Designated Authority – who will chair the meeting
The Case Presenter – who will present a case
The Consultants – the other members of the group

Your Small Group will establish the roles and rotate them weekly. Two days before the meeting, the Case Presenter will email a 300-500-word description of her/his personal leadership challenge to be discussed. The challenge will either focus on a leadership failure that still feels unsettled or it will be a current leadership challenge. More guidelines for the Small Group roles are available on IVLE.

3. Optional Coaching Meeting & Office Hours

You are invited to attend individual coaching sessions. The purpose of coaching is to explore personal leadership challenges in more depth and to develop a strategy for further development. Coaching sessions are confidential and will not be graded. These are entirely optional. If you choose to take this opportunity, come to sessions with thoughts of what you would like to discuss. Due to rooming issues, I will be more available at my office which is off-, on Portsdown Road. You are welcome to book a 40-minute meeting at my office by going to http://www.meetme.so/JonathanM. My avialability will be shown 2 weeks in advance. I will have some times available on campus. You are also welcome to email me other times you would like to meet.

REQUIREMENTS

Assessments	Points
Written: Reflection papers (6 submissions required)
Written: One of the following: Adaptive analysis of As it is in Heaven (film) or Adaptive analysis of Black Harvest (film) or Personal leadership case
Participation: Plenary participation (assessment by peers)
Participation: Plenary participation (assessment by instructor)
Participation: Small Group participation (assessment by peers)
Presentation: Small Group presentation of a leadership case (assessment by peers)
Presentation: Small Group presentation of a leadership case (assessment by instructor)

Note: Due to the significant workload associated with grading for this course, no extensions will be given. Incomplete or late submissions of coursework will receive no credit unless accompanied with documentation of a relevant medical or family emergency.

Reflection Papers

These papers encourage disciplined reflection on your experience of your Small Group. You will analyze the dynamics in your group and give your own impressions of what occurs. The best papers typically apply concepts from the course material to gain more insight into the behaviors of the group’s members. Questions will be distributed to you every week, and they will guide you in your reflections.

For groups of more than six people, you have the option of handing in a seventh reflection paper. Your overall grade for reflection papers will include this seventh paper if this paper is above your average so far. There is no option to hand in a seventh reflection paper if your Small Group has less than seven people.

Adaptive Analysis
Write a structured analysis of only one of the following films: As It Is In Heaven, or Black Harvest. Excellent papers tend to use concepts from our course to analyze, with specifics, what occurred. E.g., they might include:

Underlying dynamics
What key factors contributing to the successes and failures of what occurred
How a better outcome could have been achieved.

They do not focus on describing what occurred. While some description may be helpful at times, you may assume your readers have seen the films. Description can quickly take up space unnecessarily.

Grades will be based on the application of class concepts, readings (required and optional) and depth of thought. Forced use of course materials will not improve your grade. While there is no word limit, the recommended length is 750 words.

Personal Leadership Case

In preparing your leadership cases, pick a leadership challenge that you have experienced. Good papers demonstrate the application of the presented leadership framework to the case, apply relevant concepts, critically analyze the challenges, and provide thoughtful reflection. Papers should be between 750 – 1000 words.

Participation

One of the most important skills of a leader is the ability to work with other people. To that end, this course has been designed for you to build upon and integrate your ideas, opinions, and experiences together.

➢Plenary Class Participation

Both the instructor and your peers will assess your contribution to class discussion. Scores will be based on how well you have increased learning for the class. That will in part be determined by your ability to respond to impromptu questions about the readings.

➢Small Group Participation

Small Group members will each give confidential evaluations of your participation. Their scores will reflect attendance, preparation, case-study presentation and, most importantly, helpfulness to the learning of the Small Group.

Presentations
Presentation skills are a tremendous asset when exercising leadership. You will have the opportunity to work as a team and practice these for the Small Group presentation. In the presentation, analyze one of the three below in 20 minutes:

1.     a well-known historical leadership challenge, or
2.     a well-known current leadership challenge, or
3.     analyze your own Small Group’s dynamics (recommended)

The third option is not for the faint of heart. However, it will help you get to the core of the material in this course.

Both the instructor and your peers will grade the presentations.

SUBMISSIONS

Submit your papers as Word documents and upload them into the course Workbin, on IVLE, with your name, the title of the document, and the total word count (including footnotes but not end notes) on the front page. Each page of the document should have a page number.

GUIDELINES

I encourage lively, energetic participation in class. In order to provide that for you, I take a very serious view of breaches in confidentiality, personal attacks, and plagiarism. It is perhaps worth mentioning that these have never occurred in this course.
This syllabus may change to adapt to the interests and concerns that are raised in class. I will date each revision of the syllabus at the top of the page.

APPENDIX A: COURSE READINGS

* Required
§ Recommended
° Can also, lah

Readings for this course are in four different locations.

Our primary text, Leadership on the Line, is available at the bookstore and also online, e.g., for eReaders.
Chapters from Leadership Without Easy Answer are available free here. The book is also available in the library under CL RBR (Loans Desk 1) #HM141 Hei
As a registered student of the class, you will receive a link to our folder at Harvard Business Publishing after Class #1. Those articles are marked with an “(H)”.

12^TH JANUARY 2015, 2.00PM-2:25PM
LEE KUAN YEW SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, MM 3-5
SHOPPING WEEK
Reading:

§Last year’s alumni advice to prospective students in this course
° Heifetz & Linsky, A Survival Guide for Leaders

While this article is touted as the best article on adaptive leadership, I think it may cover too much to be really helpful. I only recommend it if you are on the fence about this course. If you are confident you are going to take the course, feel free to skip it. l
Viewing:

§Exercising Leadership: A course for me?

(If you will not be able to attend Shopping Week, you may consider watching a video made by the pioneer XL course. While they were on a bit of a high when this video was made, it gives a sense of this course.)

19^TH JANUARY 2015, 2PM-5.30PM
CLASS #1: ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP I
Reading:

*Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line, Introduction, Ch. 1, Ch. 2
*Gladwell, Malcolm, Blink, Introduction & Ch. 1

Viewing:

*Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are

26^TH JANUARY 2015, 2PM-5.30PM
CLASS #2: ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP II
Guest Lecturer: Barathan Pasupathi, CEO, JetStar Asia
Readings:

*Marshall, Jonathan A Dangerous Succession (for class discussion)
*Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line, Ch. 3.
§Heifetz, Ronald, Leadership without Easy Answers, Ch. 4

§Heifetz, Linsky & Grashow, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ch. 5 (H)

2^ND FEBRUARY 2015, 2PM-5.30PM
CLASS #3: GROUP DYNAMICS I & MINDFULNESS
Readings:

*Argyris, Chris, "Teaching Smart People How to Learn," Harvard Business Review (H)
*Benne & Sheats, “Group Roles Identifying Both Positive and Negative Group Behavior Roles,” mindtools.com
*Battilana & Casiaro, «The Network Secrets of Great Change Agents,» Harvard Business Review (H)
§Heifetz, Ronald, Leadership without Easy Answers, Ch. 5
§Study: Power without status can lead to rudeness, even abuse

9^TH FEBRUARY 2015, 2PM-5.30PM
CLASS #4: GROUP DYNAMICS II
Readings:

*Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line, Ch. 4
*Greenberg & Baron, “Group Dynamics and Work Teams”, Behavior in Organizations
°Farkas, Maria, “A Note on Team Process”, Harvard Business Publishing (H) (This is a clever article but a hard read.)
°Ashraf, Nava, “Rx: Human Nature”, Harvard Business Publishing (H)

16^TH FEBRUARY 2015, 2PM-6PM
CLASS #5: PURPOSE, PASSION, & DIRECTION
Guest Lecturer: Former President, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, of the Maldives
Readings:

*Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line, Ch. 5 & 6
§Heifetz, Ronald, Leadership without Easy Answers, Ch. 8
*Wikipedia on former president Waheed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Waheed_Hassan#Coup_allegations_and_presidency

18^TH FEBRUARY 2015, 7PM-9.00PM
FILM #1: WATCHING MOVIE: BLACK HARVEST
No readings

23^RD FEBRUARY 2015, 2PM-5.30PM
RECESS WEEK – NO CLASS

2^ND MARCH 2015, 2PM-5.30PM
CLASS #6: ORCHESTRATING CONFLICT, ACCEPTING FAILURE AND KNOWING WHEN TO APOLOGIZE
Readings:

*Kellerman, Barbara, “When Should a Leader Apologize,” Harvard Business Review (H)
*Seligman, Martin, “Building Resilience,” Harvard Business Review (H)

Video:

°Sorry, Kevin Rudd's Apology to "The stolen Generation"
*Spanx Founder Sara Blakely: “I Redefined Failure”

9^TH MARCH 2015, 1.30PM-5.30PM
CLASS #7: E-LEARNING WEEK
We will meet online, not in class.
Readings:

*Heifetz, Linsky & Grashow, “Inspire People”, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ch. 21 (H)
*Koehn, Nancy, The Fallacy of Perfection, Harvard Business Review (H)
§Rogers and Roethlisberger, "Barriers and Gateway to Communication," Harvard Business Review: On Human Relations. (H)

Viewing:

*Brené Brown: “The power of vulnerability” (20 minutes), June 2010
§Obama, Barak, “Don't Tell Me Words Don't Matter” (10 minutes), February 2008

16^TH MARCH 2015, 1.30PM-5.30PM
CLASS #8: AUTHENTIC PRESENCE I : LISTENING
Readings:

*Heifetz, Linsky & Grashow, “Inspire People”, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ch. 21 (H)
*Koehn, Nancy, The Fallacy of Perfection, Harvard Business Review (H)
§Rogers and Roethlisberger, "Barriers and Gateway to Communication," Harvard Business Review: On Human Relations. (H)

Viewing:

*Brené Brown: “The power of vulnerability” (20 minutes), June 2010
§Obama, Barak, “Don't Tell Me Words Don't Matter” (10 minutes), February 2008

18^TH MARCH 2015, 7PM-9:30PM
FILM #2: WATCHING MOVIE: AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
No readings

23^RD MARCH 2015, 9AM-12PM
CLASS #8: AUTHENTIC PRESENCE II: INSPIRATION
Readings:

*Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line, Ch. 8 & 9

30^TH MARCH 2015, 2PM-5.30PM
CLASS #9: MANAGING YOURSELF & YOUR HUNGERS
Readings:

*Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line, Ch. 7 & 10
§Drucker, Peter, “Managing Oneself,” Harvard Business Review (H)
§Kaplan, Robert, “What to ask the person in the mirror,” Harvard Business Review (H)
°Corkindale, Gill, “The price of (not) speaking truth to power,” HBR Blog Network

6^TH APRIL 2015, 6:30PM-10.00PM
CLASS #10: AUTHENTIC PRESENCE II: INSPIRATION
Readings:

*Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi "The Flow Guy", pursuit-of-happiness.org
§“I have a dream,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered 28 August 1963

Viewings:

*J. K. Rowling Harvard Commencement Speech (21 minutes), September 2008
*Ben Zander, Ted.com video (21 minutes), February, 2008

13^TH APRIL 2015, 2PM-5.30PM
CLASS #11: SMALL GROUP PRESENTATIONS & SACRED HEART
Readings:

*Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line, Ch. 11
*Heifetz, Linsky & Grashow, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ch. 23. (H)
§Vicki LaFarge, "Termination in Groups," from McCollom and Gillette, Groups in Context

Viewings:

§Conan O'Brien, Dartmouth's 2011 Commencement Address (start at 16 minutes 40 seconds if you want to skip the preamble)

APPENDIX B: CHECKLIST FOR SUBMISSIONS

	Item	Due
☐	Small Group Formation Application (link) (complete by one person in your SG)	23 Jan
☐	Reflection paper 1	30 Jan
☐	Reflection paper 2	6 Feb
☐	Reflection paper 3	13 Feb
☐	Reflection paper 4	27 Feb
☐	Reflection paper 5	13 Mar
☐	Reflection paper 6	20 Mar
☐	Reflection paper 7 (optional)	27 Mar
☐	Course evaluation (link)	17 Apr
☐	Peer evaluation (link)	17 Apr
☐	Only one of the following:
	Option A: Adaptive analysis of Black Harvest	25 Feb
	Option B: Adaptive analysis of As It Is In Heaven	30 Mar
	Option C: Personal leadership case	30 Mar

Note

Unless otherwise stated, submissions are due by 2.00 a.m. There is a 6-hour grace period. Submissions later than 8.00 a.m. will be penalized.

Preclusions

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Workload

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Workload Components : A-B-C-D-E
A: no. of lecture hours per week
B: no. of tutorial hours per week
C: no. of lab hours per week
D: no. of hours for projects, assignments, fieldwork etc per week
E: no. of hours for preparatory work by a student per week