The course presents concepts and theories of strategic leadership through different teaching formats. This includes the essence and scope of strategic leadership, the role and style, characteristics and experience of executives, decision-making style and their relationship to organizational outcomes as well as leadership in teams. Important topics like inclusive and ethical leadership and adaptive leadership will be covered.

Students who have passed this course successfully are able to:

• Distinguish between different types of leadership;
• Understand different aspects of leadership and place them into their respective contexts;
• Apply leadership to decision-making and to working in teams;
• Understand how cultural contexts influence leadership behavior;
• Identify characteristics and behaviors of inclusive and ethical leadership.

In addition, students practice collaboration and presentation skills by working in groups. Problem-solving, critical thinking and the application of theory to practice are enhanced through a group project on various leadership topics.

Attendance in all online sessions is mandatory. This is because the course is offered in a format with less contact hours and more time for self-study (for preparation, group work and reading assignments).

Class contributions are an essential part of the grading. Students are expected to turn their camera on and participate actively. Please make sure to have a quiet and appropriate environment for an online lecture (no background noises or distracting circumstances).

The course involves a variety of teaching methods, including:

• Lectures and discussion of key concepts
• Case studies and interactive group exercises, including role plays
• Guest speakers and videos
• Individual reflections

Lectures

Key concepts are presented in class and discussed with students. All participants are expected to have read the relevant chapters beforehand in order to contribute to a meaningful discussion. The theoretical input will be complemented with interactive exercises to solidify the knowledge gained.

Case Studies and Exercises

Case studies are used to exemplify the key concepts. Students will complete these individually or in groups to discuss and prepare input. Interactive exercises include guided discussions, video analyses and role plays.

Guest Speakers and Videos

Students will have the opportunity to gain insights from leaders in business and academia who will share their input and experiences on a leadership topic. Additionally, insightful videos from global leaders will be analyzed in the course.

Reflection

Students are expected to reflect on leadership throughout the course. This includes picking leaders of their choice and analyzing their behavior both in groups and individually.

Required Textbook

“Leadership in Organizations”, by Gary Yukl and William Gardner (9^th edition), chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13:

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wuww/detail.action?docID=5892731

Note: To access the book online, you need to be connected to WU’s VPN network GlobalProtect. Instructions on how to do so can be found here - https://www.wu.ac.at/en/it/services/network/vpn/

The contents of this course are based on the textbook above. The relevant chapters can be found in the course schedule of this syllabus.

The course grade is based on the following assessment elements:

• Class participation and reading assignments: 15 points
  • Oral participation: 8 points
  • Reading assignments: 7 points
• Learning diary: 10 points
• Peer grading: 10 points
• Group project: 30 points
• Final exam: 35 points

Excellent (1): 90 – 100 points

Good (2): 80 – 89 points

Satisfactory (3): 70 – 79 points

Sufficient (4): 60 – 69 points

Fail (5): <60 points

This course includes individual and group performance. Evaluation will be based on the different assignments by the instructor and peer evaluation by students of their group members (avoiding free-riding).

Class participation and reading assignments

An important course requirement is active involvement in class discussions and completing all assignments. Participation is essential for both the individual learning process of students as well as their peers. After each class unit, participation will be graded.

Students should be prepared in each session to participate voluntarily and when called upon. This means devoting time and energy to preparation before class, including reading and thinking about the assigned material, participating in study group meetings, listening to others and engaging in class discussions.

In addition to the oral participation, assignments are used to assess participation in a written format. Before every in-class session, students are expected to complete all the assignments, which can be found in the course schedule of this syllabus.

Learning diary: A learning diary is a collection of thoughts, notes, observations and other relevant material that students collected throughout the course. The diary should demonstrate the students’ learning and reflect upon the changes in perception.

Group project: Students will be assigned to groups and perform a project, analyzing in-depth a contemporary leadership topic and how that applies to a leader of interest. They must collect data and evidence on leadership aspects and present it in class. Topics refer to charismatic and transformational leadership, cross-cultural leadership and diversity, ethical and inclusive leadership and leading teams.

Final exam

Please log in with your WU account to use all functionalities of read!t. For off-campus access to our licensed electronic resources, remember to activate your VPN connection connection. In case you encounter any technical problems or have questions regarding read!t, please feel free to contact the library at readinglists@wu.ac.at.

Instructors

Univ. Prof. Dr. Barbara Sporn, Professor and Head of the Institute for Higher Education Management, barbara.sporn@wu.ac.at

Institute for Higher Education Management: https://www.wu.ac.at/ihm 

Tutor

Ricardo Kumin, BSc (WU): Academic Tutor, CEMS Master in International Management, ricardo.kumin@wu.ac.at

Use of AI in Assignments

Your assignments should be your original work and you should declare the use of AI. Misusing text generated by AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Bard, or others, is not considered original work. It is considered academic misconduct under our policy, leading to serious disciplinary actions.  The automated plagiarism check of your assignments will return a probability score for AI generated text.

While the core should be your own creation, you are allowed to use AI-based tools for grammar checks and writing revisions. However, you are not allowed to use AI-based software to generate new text for your assignments, for example, by using prompts like "write a paragraph about my topic" or "make this section longer." If you choose to use AI-based tools, please ensure that you provide a detailed overview in the appendix, including your prompts and the responses from the text generation software that you used to generate your paper. To assist you with this, we provided a reporting text template below.

Text Template for Reporting the Use of AI Tools:

Acknowledgment of Artificial Intelligence Tools Used:

For purposes of writing revision and grammar checks, I used the following tools:

Gramarly (https://www.grammarly.com)

Chat-GPT v.3.5 (https://chat.openai.com/)

Bing (https://www.bing.com)

I used the following prompts:

"Check for errors in my writing"

"Correct for grammar, spelling and comma mistakes."

I used the output to help revise my writing in the following segments of my thesis:

1.1. Introduction
2.3. Sampling
3.4.2. Results Study 1
4. Discussion