21730 Developing Executive Leadership

Subject level: Postgraduate

Handbook description

This subject provides a unique workshop-based approach for students to understand themselves and develop their managerial skills and competencies. Learning is experiential and progresses in the following way. Students first participate in a two-day seminar which provides theoretical frameworks and exercises for gaining feedback and insights into their patterns of managerial behaviour. Together with a first assignment, this enables them to focus on particular areas where they would choose to develop increased effectiveness.

A three-day workshop then provides opportunities for students to explore their managerial patterns and to experiment with new and more effective ways of improving their managerial competencies in the areas they have defined. A second post-workshop assignment builds upon and consolidates transfer of learning to work and other situations.

The approach used in this subject is intensive and its teaching methodology is very different from that employed in the management skills subject. Students should choose either subject depending on the teaching approach they prefer.

Subject objectives/outcomes

On successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate public speaking and presentation skills in a range of situations.
2. Demonstrate critical skills in strategic thinking.
3. Demonstrate enhanced knowledge and understanding of a range of critical leadership skills, including enhancing their personal capacities for exerting power influence and delegation, dealing constructively with criticism, providing negative feedback to others while limiting damage to self-esteem, acting assertively in appropriate context, and handling toxic negative emotions.
4. Demonstrate improved communication skills.
5. Better cope with stress in work and social situations.

Contribution to graduate profile

Developing Executive Leadership provides students with Leadership and managerial skills, which are crucial in their current and future roles. This subject directly explores the development of leadership and managerial skills in an experiential workshop context. Students doing the subject learn both through direct trial and error as well as through observing differing styles of other students within the workshop. Such learning is further enhanced by the cultural diversity evident in our student population. Students come to the realisation that models relating to some skills (eg assertiveness or conflict resolution) are designed for application in Western countries and may need modification when applied in an Asian context.

Teaching and learning strategies

The subject is highly experiential and is conducted in a workshop format. A range of experiential exercises has been designed relating to each of the above content areas. Understanding will be gained through a combination of demonstrations of these skills with selected students in the plenary group; the use of the exercises for further exploration and practice in small groups, and in-depth exploration of specific issues on request depending upon demand by particular students/group interest for further learning in select areas.

Content

• Attention and Effective Action
• The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
• Anxiety and Self Confidence
• Self-Containment vs Leakage
• Relating Manifestation to one's Type – using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Gaining feedback from others
• Locating oneself within a typology framework
• Developing strategic thinking – a critical leadership and managerial skill
• Running effective meetings
• Team building and team harmony
• Exploring and developing one's power and influence
• Dealing with criticism constructively
• Effective delegation in practice
• Presence and the power of listening
• Procrastination and will and Mental visualisation and will – lessons from Rational Emotional Therapy
• Exploring psychological risk
• Saying 'no' to unreasonable or unwanted risks
• A philosophy of assertiveness – the ropes to skip and the ropes to know
• Managing conflict with and between others.

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Personal Leadership assessment and analysis – Pre Workshop (Individual)

Assessment item 2: Essay Post workshop assignment (Individual)