DESCRIPTION:

This course will increase personal and professional effectiveness by focussing on leadership and character in new and interesting ways. We will consider the idea that personal influence in our multiple service roles (counseling, parenting, pastoring, teaching, missions, and managing) comes from personal credibility and communal alignments. Participants will look at dimensions of leadership including spirituality, character, emotional intelligence, community, culture and organizational context, as well as effective styles of leadership. All of these topics will focus upon the person as leader and the organizational structure that supports his/her leadership. This course is about building leadership competence through personal change and leading organizational structures to health and vision.

Using the reading list, personality assessment inventories, case studies, movies, small group work, and interactions with the instructor and peers, students will be challenged to explore their leadership assumptions in life-changing ways. This course will provide a foundation for understanding leadership and its effect on ministry development, counseling relationships, cultural competence and service. It is especially structured to be helpful to students in psychology, world missions, and theology as a cross fertilization of ministry preparation.

The course will meet weekly for a three and a half hour session.

A two-page reaction paper will be submitted on each of the books listed below:

Covey, Stephen. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Simon & Schuster, 1989.

De Pree, Max. Leadership is an Art. Michigan State University Press, 1987.

Hagberg, Janet O. Real Power. Revised edition. Sheffield Publishing Co., 1994.

Hunter, James C. The Servant. Prima, 1998.

Nouwen, Henri. In the Name of Jesus. Crossroad, 1989.

The following personality inventories:

Myers-Briggs Test, Form G, published by NBTI.

Janet Hagberg Personal Power Profile, published by Personal Power Product.

Hersey/Blanchard Lead Self Test, published by Human Resource Development.

Kouzes, James and Barry Posner. The Leadership Challenge. Revised edition. Jossey-Bass, 1995.

Quinn, Robert E. Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within. Jossey-Bass, 1996.

A two-page critical and personal response for each book is due at the appropriate course session. A twenty-page paper focusing on the student's personal mission statement, self-audit and autobiography, as well as a philosophy/theology of leadership will be required. Please see course syllabus for details.

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Meets MA in Theology (General Format) requirement in Ministry Foundation (MIN F).

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