Registration

•  Prework & Outline

About the Instructors

Home > Seminars/Education > Learning to Lead: A Guide to Nurturing Our Innate Leadership Skills > Outline

Course Outline

Premise

Leaders have been characterized as individuals that originate, innovate, develop, and challenge the status quo; even former Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell refers to leaders as problem-solvers. In studying leadership over the years, I’ve become convinced that the traits that define a good designer, also define a good leader. To leverage design’s strategic, competitive capacity, a designer must first learn to engage their innate leader. The content of this seminar has been formulated to either ignite your personal leadership skills or help you foster those skills in others.

Content

In our two days together, we will engage in a compelling dialog based on the latest in leadership principles, theories and practices from a variety of resources including: the writings of leadership gurus Warren Bennis, Jim Collins, John Kotter and Ronald Heifetz, and their colleagues from Harvard, London Business School, University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and others who firmly believe that leadership can be taught.

A bibliography of all reference materials used in this course of study will be provided along with a list of suggested reading for your personal edification.

Course Pre-Work

My goal for this course is to provide you with practical strategies that empower your innate design leader. If you would like to discuss the seminar’s content or have any questions, please do not hesitate to call me. I look forward to meeting you! - Maureen Thurston

• In preparation please read: Disruptive Cycles, Adaptive Strategies, and Principles of Leadership: Tantalizing Connections, Design Management Review, Fall 2006

• Prepare 2-3 leadership issues/challenges that you currently face and email them to the instructor at least 3 days prior to the seminar.

Course Outline

Day One: Context, Mindsets, Strategic Relationships

Day 1 Morning Session

• Welcome and Course Overview

• Review objectives and conduct introductions

• Diagram/diagnose/discuss written pre-assignment and assigned reading

• Design Leadership in a Business Context

• Balancing the best of both worlds: the great right brain/left brain debate

• Mastering the character of creative leadership

• Deciphering the Heroes, Myths, and Mystique of Leadership

• Challenging assumptions and expectations

• Creating a case for change (reference everyone’s written pre-assignment)

Day 1 Afternoon Session

• Mindsets and Default Behaviors: Understanding Leadership as a State of Mind

• Dissecting past crucibles and failures

• Mapping new frameworks for the future

• Command and Control verses Leadership (Part 1)

• Contrasting formal authority with adaptive leadership

Assignment

Prepare for discussion: Interpretive Management: What General Managers Can Learn From Design, Richard K. Lester, Michael J. Piore, Kamal M. Malek; Harvard Business Review

Day Two: Personal Reinvention, Preparing for the Future

Day 2 Morning Session

• Command and Control verses Leadership (Part 2)

• Critiquing the “interpretive management” approach

• Exercising adaptive leadership skills

• Innate Skill Set: Being Your Authentic Self

• Defining yourself as a transactional or transformational leader

• Exploring personal traits, considerations and characteristics of leadership

• Capitalizing on the power of presence over personality

Day 2 Morning Session

• A Systemic Culture of Leadership

• Filling the leader pipeline

• Sustaining creative leadership: behaviors/environments

• Summary: Acts of Leadership

• Embracing leadership values

• Advancing from theory to practice: tools you can use

Register Now