Teaching Leadership Skills

 

Teaching Leadership Skills - two presenters in front of a large crowd

  • Leadership and Ethics Case Studies – The MIT Sloan School of Business publishes “real life” case studies in leadership that are excellent for upper division students or graduate students. These are case studies that can be worked through with “assigned roles” in small groups or can be assigned for work out of the classroom and then debriefed and presented by students.  – Kindal Shores
  • Unlocking Midlevel Leaders’ Untapped Potential – This article discusses the importance of developing midlevel leaders in colleges and universities. It emphasizes that these leaders play a critical role in implementing strategic planning, overseeing student programming, and maintaining the smooth operation of institutions. The article also highlights a program at the College of William and Mary that focuses on developing midlevel leaders through self-awareness, leading with ideas, networked leadership, academic well-being, leadership narratives, and equity and inclusivity. While the program is aimed toward faculty, I plan to ask students to ponder how these big ideas relate to them and their leadership strengths and weaknesses. Then, I want to encourage students to follow the article’s goals: 1) pitching and implementing new ideas, 2) building a network, 3) promoting well-being, and 4) addressing equity issues on their campus AND in their dissertation proposals/projects. Overall, I want to emphasize the importance of investing in mid-level leaders. As higher education continues to change, mid-level leaders will be essential to drive positive change in higher education. I want LEED students to feel part of- and invested in that change. – Roshaunda, a 2023 Cohort participant
  • Leadership Challenge – I participated in a Leadership Development Workshop using Kouzes and Posner’s Transformation leadership curriculum. This curriculum highlight Five practices of exemplary Leadership. – Nancy Dias
  • The Benefits of Active Learning in Higher Education – Interviewing experts in the field was presented as one of many meaningful ways to deepen students’ understanding of the field(s) that align with their major, give professors insights into how well students are grasping various concepts, and build connections between students. More specifically, building connections between students has been shown to increase course completion rates. The idea that I had for my Foundations of Recreational Therapy course involves interviewing experts in the field in a more structured and in-class format. I figured that it could be more effective for students to complete this active learning within the classroom instead of asking them to pick from, connect with, and interview an expert in the field outside of class. I would organize a panel of 3-4 recreational therapy experts. About a week before the experts attend class, I would have an in-class workshop for the students to first work in small teams and then come together collectively as a class to decide on 4-5 “interview questions” that they would like to ask their panel of experts. These questions would then be shared with the panel for the purposes of preparation before the class meeting when the panel will be in attendance. The students will then be able to hear from the panel members in class and will have the opportunity to ask follow-up questions to the panel in class. I currently have guest speakers come into class throughout the semester who are recreational therapists who work in different settings with different populations. However, I think this active learning ideas is even better because the students have the opportunity to serve as leaders for their learning and exercise complete autonomy over what they want to learn from these experts. – Lindsey Oakes
  • Everyday Leadership – This is a TED talk by Drew Dudley that I have used for many years in Small Group Communication to promote the idea that we can be leaders in our everyday lives. I also like that this is a SHORT talk with a central story that students can relate to. – Deborah Thomson
  • Active Learning: A Practice Guide for College Faculty – This book consisted of a series of very short chapters written by a variety of authors on areas including discussion and participation in the classroom, active learning strategies, and group work as well as inclusion of tools and templates.  One chapter of interest was “Three Active Learning Strategies that Push Students Beyond Memorization.”  It discussed some practical consideration to move students from passive to active learning and in my course, case studies would be one area I could incorporate more both in the classroom and in outside assignments.
  • Improving Student Retention – I read through Connecting in the Online Classroom by Rebecca A. Glazier. Dr. She is a political scientist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Dr. Glazier’s book focuses on active learning through rapport building in online and hybrid classrooms. Looking at the promise of online learning, she notes the challenges of the high dropout rate for online classes. She focuses on solutions to the issue of attention withdrawal, which later leads to failing grades or official withdrawal. Professors can build rapport through three pedagogical approaches: humanizing the professor, providing personalized feedback, and reaching out to students. The brilliance of the book is its simplicity. The teaching theory is sound, the data is excellent, and the experiment she does between her own classes (minimum vs high rapport building) is highly illustrative. Where her work stands out is through examples of these practices (table 4.1), templates, and timelines to help professors create routines of rapport-building. As a somewhat introverted professor, rapport building is work. I found that the suggested routines removed the hardest part of connecting with students (what do I say? when should I do it?) and made room for the more valuable work of relationship building. I am working to include more of these practices in the class throughout this semester and I’m specifically focusing on faster email response times and adding a “how are you?” check-in about 2/3 of the way through the semester. Dr. Glazier has a short video presentation (above) on the underlying experiment showing the connection between rapport building, active learning, and retention. – Jason Pudlo
  • Active Learning Resources – One of the things that I get hung up on is evaluating and grading active learning.  It is tempting to give participation points or say it’s interesting enough that they just want to do it but I think to support active learning (especially ongoing meaningful active learning) I need to do a better job of evaluating it and integrating it into my grading system.  In our major students do a lot of group work.  This is a learning experience in itself.  One of the hardest parts of group based active learning is piecing out contributions and evaluating peers and each individual’s commitment.  To this end I went in search of best practices in grading active learning and grading group work.  Here are some resources that I particularly liked: How to Evaluate Group Work; Assessment and Evaluation of Group Work; Groupwork in Active Learning Classrooms: Recommendations for Users – Kindal Shores
  • Leadership Reconsidered: Engaging Higher Education in Social Change – This was a fantastic place for me to start as a new faculty member and getting some background related to translational leadership.   I read the first four chapters, and it outlines the attributes of an individual and leader that are important to consider when weaving leadership skills into the curriculum or activity. From here, I decided to implement a very simple change this week in my course.  I have a live session related to the material covered in the research methods and statistics to reinforce how to apply the information such as critically appraising research literature. This week, I simply started the live session with the question, “What do you want to get out of our time together?”  Although, I may have used this in a course in the past, I was not aware of the impact this simple question can have for students creating a shared purpose. This simple question to start the live session covers all of the individual and group attributes for translational leadership and will help start to lay the ground work for my doctoral students to see themselves as leaders.  I know this seems extremely simple, but like many of you have also stated, my students do not currently see themselves as leaders.  Although, in most cases, they are!  I want to help them discover this on their own and I thought this was a fantastic place to start. – Megan Dillon-Spruill and Nancy Dias
  • Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty by Elizabeth F. Barkley – One of the activities I will be adding into class is “Here’s What We Talked About Today.” At the end of class, have each student create an exam question based on the material covered that day. Have them meet in groups of 3 or 4. One person serves as the lead to help the group choose their “best” question and the leader presents to the class. Will not work if you have a huge class unless you call on different groups each time you conduct this activity. For me, the class in which this will work best already has a group project and my thought is to keep these groups working together. Also a good way to ensure the students are grasping the material and can lead to higher order thought processing. A second active learning activity is “Cocktail Party.” In the book the author has students moving around the room discussing their major paper topic. In my class, students are required to develop their professional power greeting. In the past we went over the material, then they worked on it in class and then “presented” later in semester. I am tweaking this so that the day we cover the material and they create their greeting based on the template provided, I will end the class with them practicing it through the Cocktail Party activity. Hopefully this will help lessen their anxiety when presenting and also help with practicing it so it feels like a natural conversation. – Rose Haddock
  • Dare to Lead by Brene Brown – It seems like we live in a time where it is difficult to have raw, honest conversations in an open and nonjudgmental way. This book digs into why this is hard and how to develop the courage and transparency (vulnerability) to do just that. Brene makes a lot of insightful statements, but one that truly resonates with me is “clear is kind.” Communication at this level requires compassion, active listening, and service. It also requires an individual to be both optimistic AND realistic. In my class, I plan to encourage these qualities first by modeling them through my own service to the students, but then I also want the students to develop these skills through small group work where they are encouraged to each take an active role to guide the group to success. The class will be assigned a final project in which they will have to collaborate to write a “SOAP” note, which is required documentation that reflects what was completed during a therapy session. Each student will be assigned a role in the group, managing different facets of the presentation they will have to give (ex., timekeeper, writing quality check, recording/appearance guidelines, etc.). – Tricia Carter
  • The Leadership Pizza – This is a self-assessment activity for leadership. Through this activity, students can identify leadership skills, attributes, and attitudes they find important for effective leadership. They then get to assess their own development in these areas. This activity is also a great tool for setting individual leadership development goals. For courses that have a large group assignment that spans over the course of the semester, this could be a great activity to implement with students in their groups before they start working on the group assignment, half way through the semester, and one final time at the end of the semester after the group assignment is complete and submitted. – Lindsey Oakes
  • Leadership Styles Quizzes – Have students complete one of these assessments and upload documentation/confirmation of completion. A discussion or assignment can be included in the reflection. – Steven Richter and Emily Brewer
  • DiSC Profile – An article by a professor from Loyola University, referenced below, essentially reviewed different leadership assessment tools in graduate education, which led me to start brainstorming about activities to incorporate into my course.  Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that to be a good leader, you must know your own strengths and weaknesses.  A tool commonly used as a personal assessment tool is DiSC.  It was created by a physiological psychologist who also wrote a book in 1928, Emotions of Normal People.    I thought this would be a fun activity for the students for self-evaluation. I plan to incorporate this self-evaluation tool into our team science discussion board for my students this semester to help deepen their understanding of their strengths and weaknesses to become better leaders. – Megan Dillon-Spruill
    • Pierre, D. E., Okstad, J. (2021). Utilizing leadership assessment tools in graduate education. In M. L. Shankman & R. A. Gigliotti (Eds.). New Directions for Student Leadership: No. 170. Using inventories and assessments to enhance leadership development (pp 87-95). Wiley.
    • Gigliotti, R. A., Dwyer, M., Brescia, S. A., Gergus, M., & Stefanelli, J. R. (2020). Learning leadership in higher education: Communicative implications for graduate education. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 28(4), 209-223.  
  • Monday Morning Leadership – This book included 8 “leadership discussions” that the author had with a trusted mentor.  It did have great content on how to develop leadership skills and may be a good resource for individuals who are in (or will be in) a managerial position.  – Ellen Poland
  • Game Time – I’ve known I wanted to to make my 3rd/4th activities about Active Learning, but I wasn’t sure what that meant for my class. This article talks about the use of games in urban planning education, which I hadn’t thought of as Active Learning. I had been thinking about sending the students into the Greenway, or something experiential, but I think a game around Climate Change would be a more applied and practical exercise. – Steven Richter
  • Weimer’s Learner Centered Teaching (2nd edition) – This book compares the learner centered approach with active learning and encourages instructors to ensure active learning methodologies are set up with the learners in mind and not just to have “active” learning to say you practice active learning. In addition, some other active learning methods that I have had an opportunity to review in Student Engagement Techniques that will work for my courses include: Small group tutorials – providing small groups with the ability to work together on problems and then the group meets with instructor after for comments and suggestions; Webquest – encourages students to utilize the web to search for specific information for analysis and discussion in the classroom; Jigsaw allows students to become the experts on specific topics and then share the information with groups of students as they move around the room (it allows them to be leaders by directing the way they approach providing the information and directing other students in their learning process). – Rose Haddock
  • I’ve been reading about failure in simulations and games in the classroom. Simulations have long been used to help students practice leadership skills in semi-realistic scenarios. Related to my class on disaster politics, simulations are very popular among emergency managers. These usually fall under two categories. The first are live exercises to test operational practices, such as the airplane crash simulations taking place at ENC airports this month. The second are tabletop exercises, such as using past hurricane tracks and damage to evaluate disaster policies and test coordination networks. In these simulations, failure is usually not possible. While students and practitioners are tested on their knowledge and leadership skills, truly wrong choices are rare. James Fielder’s chapter discusses the role of failure in classroom games. Wargames and table-top role-playing games (such as Dungeons and Dragons) put students in scenarios where it is possible that they can make a wrong choice or a bad dice roll and fail the game. The defense system fails to shoot down the nuclear missile, the virus escapes containment, the firetruck breaks down and never makes it to the airport, and so on. Failure forces improvisation and this provides a new type of learning opportunity for students. Failure is also a tool that can be used for evaluation (risky choices lead to risky outcomes) and debriefing (what went wrong and when). Failure in a safe environment should help students avoid failure when it matters. Examples include some of the new climate change wargames being used by the Department of Defense, a great game called Dice and Disaster by the Washington Department of Emergency Management and even the popular board game Pandemic. – Jason Pudlo
    • For more on including failure into simulations, check out Fielder, James. “Gaming to Lose: Learning from Failure in Classroom Games.” In Simulations in the Political Science Classroom, pp. 19-29. Routledge, 2022.
  • Forget the Pecking Order at Work – Here’s a great TED Talk from Margaret Heffernan. Here is the description from the TED website: “Organizations are often run according to “the superchicken model,” where the value is placed on star employees who outperform others. And yet, this isn’t what drives the most high-achieving teams. Business leader Margaret Heffernan observes that it is social cohesion — built every coffee break, every time one team member asks another for help — that leads over time to great results. It’s a radical rethink of what drives us to do our best work, and what it means to be a leader. Because as Heffernan points out: “Companies don’t have ideas. Only people do.”” – Deborah Thomson
  • Tone of Voice in Communication – In my class we have been talking about the importance of verbal interactions and how you are perceived by others in these opportunities. This is a video I shared about tone of voice and how that can contribute to whether you are perceived as someone with confidence who can be looked to for guidance. Thought I would share here for anyone talking about the importance of verbal interactions in the professional environment. – Tricia Carter
  • What is Clinical Leadership and Why it is Important – This particular article includes the difference between management and leadership in addition to competency frameworks.  It discusses Medical Leadership Competency Framework which focuses on leadership that is ‘nearby’, ‘engaging’ and ‘shared.’  I enjoyed the short article and found some key points to consider. – Ellen Poland
    • Swanwick, T., McKimm J.  What is clinical leadership and why is it important. Clin. Teach. 2011; 8: 22-6.
  • Fun Leadership Activities – The leadership activities described on this website are described as “training, challenges, and games great for employee development and building team spirit.” I think all of these leadership activities could be used in the classroom with students to increase their development as leaders and build their team spirit when working in groups. One of my favorites is the Magic Carpet activity. It could be used in small groups of students as the very first thing the small group does together to “break the ice,” get to know one another, develop their leadership skills, and build team spirit within their small group. The Magic Carpet game is described as “a challenge involving teams flipping a rug over without leaving the rug’s boundaries.” If it is not feasible to have rugs in class for this activity, a sheet, a mat, or large pieces of paper or poster boards that are tapped together could serve the same purpose as a rug. The steps are as follows:
    1. Divide the class into small groups of 3-5 students. Prepare a sheet, mat, rug, or make-shift run (i.e., paper tapped together) for each small group.
    2. Be sure it is large enough for each small group to stand on.
    3. After each small group stands on their “rug,” ask the small groups to flip over their “rug” to the opposite side.
    4. While flipping, none of the students can step out of the rug’s boundaries. Otherwise, the student’s small group will have to start over.
    5. The first small group to successfully flip their “rug” over wins.

    The skills that are taught during this challenge are teamwork, patience, and problem-solving, which are all essential for leadership. I think it would be a great idea to debrief with the class after the game is finished to talk through each of these skills and what the game taught each small group regarding these skills. – Lindsey Oakes

  • CoolClimate Calculator – For my class, I’ll have them use this climate change calculator to look at how different lifestyle choices relate to the production of greenhouse gas. Its a good active learning tool for climate change education, which is what I’m doing in the final module for my environmental planning class. – Steven Richter
  • On Becoming a Leader – Warren Bennis sums up leadership skills by stating “the underlying issue in leading from voice is trust – in fact, I believe that trust is the underlying issue in not only getting people on your side but having them stay there” (Bennis, 2009).  Bennis believes it takes these four steps to cement trust: Constancy, congruity, reliability, and integrity (Bennis, 2009) This approach resonates with me. and after a graduate student recommended the book, I read and keep going back to the Bennis book. – Kindal Shores
  • ECU provides access to the Linked In learning library and I have found and enjoyed this tutorial: Conant, D. (2023, June 22). LinkedIn – official site. Finding your leadership purpose with Doug Conant. Doug Conant encourages bringing a growth mindset to one’s leadership journey and to be intentional with your purpose.  His mantra is if you think you can do something (like grow as a leader…) then you can! In the Linked-In learning, Doug Conant states that one must have a purpose to lead. You must also know who you are. This is derived from knowing why you lead, what promise you are giving, and knowing what your values are. – Kindal Shores
  • Impact of Active Learning Strategy on the Student Engagement – this is a great article on active learning and strategies to build student engagement! – Tricia Carter
  • The Professor is In – This is a platform for academicians to learn from or use each other as a resource. It was recommended to me when I participated in an Women’s Leadership workshop – Nancy Dias
  • The Professor is Out – This is a platform for academicians to learn from or use each other as a resource. It was recommended to me when I participated in an Women’s Leadership workshop – Nancy Dias
  • The Leadership Compass Self-Assessment – This can be used to start the discussion on leadership with students. – Rose Haddock
  • Integrated Leadership – This is a leadership evaluation tool that I found for my students.  As we have discussed with many of our students, for the most part, in our program, they are already nurse leaders in one aspect or another; however, they fail to recognize this!  I have found this resource that is directly related to leadership in the healthcare world and even addresses post-pandemic healthcare and the changes that this has brought to nursing. – Megan Dillon-Spruill
  • Ethical Reasoning in Action – This suite of exercises hosted by James Madison University seems really fascinating. Their website lays out their eight key questions approach, gives learning objectives, and provides fully developed ethical decision-making scenarios. The scenarios are great and include text-based instructions along with links to context-setting videos! Still vetting the content for the class I will be teaching, but overall the scenarios are well done, and can plug-and-play with nearly any discipline teaching leadership and ethics. – Jason Pudlo
  • Looking for tips on Inclusive Leadership? Here is a collection of 5 TED Talks on the importance of leadership that includes and values everyone as the key to success.
  • Do you believe we all have potential to lead? Entrepreneur and former Icelandic presidential candidate Halla Tómasdóttir believes there is a leader in all of us and our goal should be to “release that leader.” In this 14 minute TED Talk, she describes the need for global leaders to change their ways — or risk becoming irrelevant.
  • Need a quick overview on different leadership styles? There are many websites that describe a number of leadership styles; two are featured below that describe 5 leadership styles (some websites describe 7, 8, and even 10 leadership styles if you’re looking for more variety).
  • The International Institute for Management Development website has a nice summary of 5 leadership styles and lists the advantages and disadvantages of each style:
    • Authoritarian Leadership
    • Participative Leadership
    • Delegative Leadership
    • Transactional Leadership
    • Transformational Leadership
  • This US News and World Report article also provides a brief summary of 5 leadership styles:
    • Authoritative leadership
    • Coaching leadership
    • Collaborative leadership
    • Engaged leadership
    • Observant leadership
  • What is inspirational leadership? This 18 minute TED Talk by Simon Sinek describes a model for inspirational leadership with the core tenet being the question “Why?” He includes examples of inspirational leadership including Apple, Martin Luther King Jr, and the Wright Brothers.
  • The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) created a toolkit for leaders in medical schools and teaching hospitals. Their online virtual library includes resources for leading in difficult times, with a focus on managing self, leading others, and leading your organization.
  • This brief article from the American Medical Association website includes tips for medical students in developing leadership skills. There is also a link to Leadership Learning Series with several online modules (requires registration to access).
  • Word Cloud Assignment – Have students come up with 3-5 words that describe the qualities of a good leader. I set up a poll on Canvas to record their answers. I compile all of the student responses and generate a word cloud to share with the class. The word cloud activity can be used in several ways; some examples are listed below
    • an introduction to leadership
    • as the starting point for discussion in class or on a discussion board on what characteristics are most frequently listed and what ones “stand out” or seem like outliers
    • as a baseline measure with a repeat of the poll at the end of the segment on leadership or the end of the semester to see if views on leadership have changed
  • Discussion Board Topic Ideas
    • Assign a movie for students to watch that recounts an event or events when good leadership would be needed. Observe the characters in the film who were in leadership positions and analyze their leadership styles. For my graduate students in public health, I have them watch the movie And the Band Played On about the early years of the HIV / AIDS epidemic in the United States and identify challenges faced by leaders during the early response.
    • Have the students read a review article or book chapter on leadership. I used a book chapter entitled Leadership in Public Health from the textbook Public Health Administration: Principles for Population-based Management, edited by Novick et al. Students should then review a biography or historical account that focuses on a leader in the field and reflect on what characteristics of leadership they had and what characteristics they lacked. You could have all of the students review the same leader, or divide the class into groups and assign different leaders (e.g. CEOs of the top companies in the U.S., prime ministers in the United Kingdom, U.S. Surgeon Generals, U.S. Secretaries of State, Education, Defense, etc. See attached for for specific information on my discussion board assignment for graduate students in public health. 
  • Small Group Project – Let students choose a TV sitcom or children’s movie to illustrate different leadership styles in the characters. For example, when teaching medical students about the importance of the Incident Management System in responding to emergencies, I had all students complete the online training FEMA Incident Management System Training Then, students worked in small groups to use characters from a sitcom or children’s movie (Disney. Pixar, etc.) to identify which characters would be best suited for different roles in the incident management system. See attached for more specific information on the small group project.
  • Risk Communication Management – Communicating during a crisis is an essential leadership skill. I have students complete online Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication training online. Then, I would open a discussion board to have students respond to misinformation in the news and on social media using risk communication skills. I have also had them review leaders being interviewed on TV and have them identify successful communication strategies as well as areas for improvement.
  • Articles – These are great articles to use in classroom discussions or to use as a starting point for assignments.