Program News
New leadership course offered
Julius Caesar, wearing a scarlet cloak so that all his soldiers could see him, was always front and center when his men charged the enemy. Napoleon rallied his troops while astride a massive white horse. So did George Washington.
So, is leadership on the battlefield different from leadership in any other capacity? And, how does one become an effective leader in today’s corporate world, in a non-profit environment, or, for that matter, within a family?
These are questions that are being investigated in a new Management class called “Leadership in
Organizations” being taught this spring by
John M. Lenti, state director of the S.C. Small Business Development Center
program in the Moore School of Business. The course is an elective, and was designed to be taught
on both an undergraduate and graduate level.
Currently, 35 undergraduate seniors – 25 of whom are female -- are enrolled in the 8-week course. Later this spring, Adjunct Professor Pat Canary, one of the several coauthors of the course, will teach the course in Vienna, Austria, to graduate students enrolled in Moore’s IMBA Europe program.
“There is a desperate need for leadership in today’s business world,” says Lenti, who learned about leadership at West Point and in the U.S. Army. The class make-up is primarily female, he thinks, because “many men have this idea that they already know it all.”
“Leadership in Organizations” looks at leadership from several vantage points. This includes the different styles of leadership, various attributes of successful leaders (ethics, vision, courage, the ability to lead by example), and “how different leaders in different situations used a variety of skills and techniques to achieve success in business, on the athletic field, on the battlefield, or in the home.” Leadership, says Lenti, is as much an art form as anything else.
He isn’t teaching just about corporate leadership. “Many of our students are interested in working in nonprofits or simply want to know the skills needed to be an effective leader,” Lenti says. One of his guest speakers was a former Peace Corps volunteer who spent two years in El Salvador in a demanding leadership position.
For the final exam, Lenti’s students will write a Career Leadership Development Plan for themselves that can be used immediately after graduation. This paper will detail their strengths and weaknesses as they were individually assessed during the course, and will include an action plan they can use to become the kind of leader they want to be.
A traditional 16-week version of the new leadership course will be offered to Moore students during the Fall 2006 semester. An 8-week version will also be offered during the second half of the Fall ’06 semester.