Integrative Leadership: From Theory to Practice – 6623

Fall 2019

In the 21st century, leaders with different skills and from different sectors need to be able to communicate and collaborate in new ways to meet grand challenges ranging from improving public education in local schools, to writing smarter and more consistent regulations for coordinated and cost effective healthcare delivery, to humane and effective approaches to current migrant crises in Europe and the Mediterranean. Integrative leadership is shared leadership -- of public, private and nonprofit actors or approaches -- to address complex and significant issues that cannot be effectively addressed by a single person, entity, sector, method, form or technique.  This interdisciplinary course focuses key integrative leadership questions and on the diverse theories, disciplines, experiences and techniques that can help us answer them.  Such questions include: What is leadership? Is it found in, between or among individuals?  What does effective collaboration toward a common goal require within and between teams and organizations?  How can we bring public, private and nonprofit actors and approaches together to address complex and significant societal challenges?  We use scalar levels of analysis -- individual/interpersonal, interteam/interorganizational, intersector and international -- to look at integrative leadership practice in a number of contexts.  Learning occurs through reading foundational materials, personal leadership coaching, engaging extensively with examples from guest speakers and case materials, and developing a final group project related to integrative leadership on a specific, current issue.  You will: (a) learn to recognize and address integrative leadership challenges and opportunities, and (b) build your own capacity to contribute to integrative leadership through group work in interdisciplinary teams and through being exposed to a range of boundary work practices.