• Identify a critical leadership situation and, based on it, articulate an important leadership issue, problem, or dilemma
• Contrast and connect theoretical concepts and approaches to leadership, and apply them to the challenges of leading and following in the critical situation
• Discuss and evaluate how specific leader or leaders frame the critical situation and engage in decision making and action
• Perform an analysis of the critical situation and the leader’s or leaders’ approach to it

This course takes as a point of departure James March’s definition of leadership as a “delicate balance of plumbing and poetry” and aims at igniting students’ curiosity towards and appreciation of the deeper realities of leading and following. It seeks to inspire and enable students to grasp and reflect on the complex nature and meaning of leadership, and to illuminate the dilemmas of leading. It provides learning experiences that enhance their capacity to recognize, frame, reflect upon and envision decisions and actions related to leading in situations of ambiguity.
 
The course offers a critical and comparative introduction to theoretical perspectives and frameworks on leadership, connecting the concept to related notions, such as management, authority, and charisma. It provides students with insights on the opportunities, challenges, problems, and limitations of leadership and with occasions for discussion of leadership related issues, such as envisioning, mustering political capital, exercising influence, leading without power, and the role of networks in providing checks and balances to leaders. It illustrates, contrasts, connects and challenges theoretical ideas through examples from different contexts.
 
During the course, the students engage with knowing, doing, and being aspects of leadership, reflecting upon the particularities of leading oneself, groups, and organizations. They also get exposure to a complex ecology of organisational leaders, e.g. institutional, political, intellectual, and everyday leaders, as well as to substitutes for leadership. Through that, they expand their imagination for action and repertoire of available roles, skills, and styles. The course also increases students’ awareness of the difficulties and potentially dysfunctional aspects of leadership, as well as of its joys, passion, and beauty.
 
Overlap with the course Managing Organizational Change
The course Leadership extends a number of theoretical issues and empirical phenomena related to Managing Organizational Change to the study of leadership. Students learn theoretical concepts and analytical tools that they can employ in understanding the behaviour of leaders in change situations.

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