Leadership Course at Lower Merion

[Phil Ross]

At Lower Merion, the home of Dawgma 1712, our mentors try to emphasize and educate us on the values of leadership and ethical thinking. To encourage their ability to put us in positions that promote leadership, we are attempting to create a new course at our school on ethical-based leadership.

To do this, we need data that demonstrates that there are people who support courses like this, both on a local and national level. And so I am here to ask you to fill out this poll. And feedback / advice / assistance would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[JaneYoung]

Phil,
This is a great opportunity for all of you and it will prove itself valuable in years to come, as the course becomes an established 'must-take because it's cool', not just because of its potential impact on the futures of so many graduates.

Regarding the feedback / advice / assistance suggestion, would you be willing to provide a couple of key talking points that your mentors have used in interesting the team in developing/designing this course?

I understand that ethical leadership involves more than just being leaders of good character and how a company, agency, corporation would be lead and lead itself with this key mission/philosophy. Perhaps you could share an example or two that you would use when introducing this to students, administrators, and future corporate leaders.

This is very very exciting. Please let me know how I can help.
Jane

[Rich Kressly]

Jane,
The entire course proposal is under development by one of our seniors, Sylvia Herbert, as her Senior Project. Once the documentation is in place, including rationale, etc - she will post it here.

Right now, however, we need LOTS of people to vote their opinion on this one...both students and mentors...thanks!

[Andrew Schreiber]

No, I would not be interested in taking it, however, ABET apparently feels that courses similar to it are of some worth. (http://www.abet.org/Linked%20Documen...2012-01-08.pdf General Requirements Criterion 3 Point F)

[Cynette]

A few weeks ago, I attended a symposium for Environmental Managers and one of our discussions was on the importance of having ethics as a required course at the under grad level. I love the idea of having ethics wrapped into a leadership course at the HS level!

[Cooley744]

We need good, ethical leaders!!! This would be a great class if it was taken seriously and had motivated students taking it

[gblake]

When I answer the poll question - Should I tell the truth, or give you the answer I think you want?

[Phil Ross]

Originally Posted by gblake

When I answer the poll question - Should I tell the truth, or give you the answer I think you want?

hopefully they will be the same

you should tell the truth.

thanks!

[Molten]

There is a very popular elective at IUPUI. They discuss leadership, but they also discuss organization.

It is very hard to lead a team if the team isn't organized into some form of ranks or divided by skill.

It also focuses on interactions between followers. Another key to being a good leader.

You might consider diversifying from just leadership. There is so much that could be covered in a more general subject matter.

[Kims Robot]

This might be a stupid question... but do they teach non-ethical Leadership? I guess in my mind, and in every leadership book I have read, every course I have taken, ethics is always somehow tied into leadership. Even the "How to Win Friends and Influence People" which before I read, I thought was a sales pitch/manipulative title/idea, turned out really to be a lot about ethics, and being honest.

I know that in the real world there is non-ethical leadership going on, political games and the like, but I dont think Ive ever seen non-ethical leadership actually taught.

Splitting hairs I know... Im all for anything that teaches students to take charge and lead as you will know from many of my posts and the leadership conferences I taught, but I guess I was mostly curious why the ethics was speficially called out in the course title, if it was some form of leadership or specific theory of leadership I hadnt heard of...?

Good luck... Id definitely be interested to see what the curriculum structure turns out to be

[Rich Kressly]

Tied into, sure, but emphasized?

Also know that our school and community is one that is full of resources and incredible opportunities (I'm pretty sure that by all metrics our school district is in the top 20 in the nation in per-pupil spending), but it's also unfortunately a culture where political power and influence of the individual all too often wins out over what's best for the community, group, or school as a whole. The result is a school where a lot of wonderfully bright students sometimes tend to believe that obtaining as many titles as possible (leadership-type titles) for their resume/transcript is far more important than "service" and working for the good of the group.

This year my colleague and I ran "leadership training" for our Tech & Engineering Club's leaders (TSA officers and Dawgma captains) about once a month. It became very interesting to us how much these students were starving for this type of information, including some students who weren't in the club asking if they could be part of it once they learned what was going on.

Every community is different and each one has its local strengths and weaknesses. We've begun something special in our community through our team and club growing the FIRST ethos and this type of emphasis happens to be a next logical step for us.

So Sylvia, who was a part of those trainings, decided she wanted to do something more far reaching with what she was getting out of those sessions as her senior project. Thus, the title, "Ethics-Based Leadership."

Perhaps your community situation is different and this emphasis isn't as great a need.

[Rich Kressly]

Attached is Sylvia's Phase One proposal document that was the centerpiece around which she built her senior project presentation. I will attach the bibliography/works cited as it becomes available.

The next steps for this will be for staff members (myself and a colleague) to slightly revise this Phase One document, complete a Phase Two document (more detailed, including more of Sylvia's research and with more of the detail you'll probably want to see) and submit them to the district for consideration in the fall. We'll also spend some time, with Sylvia (who will be attending Drexel's honors college with a major of Mech E.) cultivating some in house administrative support for the course.

[Molten]

I admit I skipped over some parts of the document(I'm tired) but I like the way it looks. Please inform us of how it turns out once implemented. I'm sure if it goes well, other schools will want to follow.