In your Global Insight and Wisdom Journal, reflect on the following questions:
1.What are your key qualities as a leader?
2.What are your most admirable qualities as a leader?
3.Which qualities were discussed in this exercise that you would like to develop or enhance?
Theme 2: Extraordinary Leaders
"A leader is an individual who significantly affects the thoughts and behaviors of others, without the use of coercion but rather, through persuasion."
(Howard Gardner)
Why study great leaders?
- We all need to know what humans are capable of; what we can aspire toward.
- We all have a degree of extraordinariness, whether actualized or not; as do the people we work with.
- Great leaders are more than extraordinary people, they:
?Link creativity and responsibility
?Work toward a larger purpose which is admirable and ethical
Theme 3: Reflecting, Leveraging, and Framing; The Skills of Extraordinary Leaders
Noted leadership scholar Howard Gardner notes that extraordinary leaders spend more time reflecting and are better at leveraging and framing than are ordinary people. The following three exercises will allow you to assess your own skills at reflecting, leveraging, and framing.
In your Global Insight and Wisdom Journal, note your sentence "In the ideal future, the world will be..." (Your sentence may have changed from the one you posted in the Forum prior to discussion.) Then state your personal understanding of what your responsibility is as a global business leader, or a future global business leader, for the quality of life on the planet.
Remember that it is neither important, nor helpful, that we all strive for a common ideal. It is, however, both important and helpful to have a personal ideal, a vision of what you are striving for as a leader, and an anchor to return to when the world, and leading, gets chaotic.
In your Global Insight and Wisdom Journal, without using any words, but instead using any art supplies that you wish to use, take 15-30 minutes to create your image of power. Write your own definition of power based on your original image. What did you learn about your own relationship to power from the class discussion?
Theme 6: The Leader as Motivator
What energizes members of an organization to produce high-quality work? Which influences in employees and their environment encourage, or discourage them to out-perform the competition?
Approaches to motivating people vary among cultures. Effective approaches to motivation take into consideration the cultural backgrounds and experiences of the people involved.
Participate in the Forum discussion for this exercise, and reflect on your personal learning in your Global Insight and Wisdom Journal.
Theme 7: Leading with Integrity
As global leaders, each of us must define our own moral imperatives. Our moral vision guides our personal and organizational behavior, it frames the goals we set, the trade-offs we are willing to consider, and the decisions we make.