ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP/ CHANGE LEADERSHIP CONCENTRATION
The order in which I took the ORGL courses has helped shape my understanding and impacted my take-aways from each. I am, therefore, presenting the competencies and artifacts in the order in which I took my courses.
ORGL 600 – Foundations of Leadership – Dr. David Houglum (Dr. Carey & Dr. Armstrong Curriculum)
Competencies: I am grateful that I began my Masters’ Degree experience with Foundations of Leadership. It immediately helped me realize this was not only going to be a challenge, but that I was exactly where I needed to be on my path to making a difference. The purpose of this course is to help students realize that leadership begins by looking inward. It prompted spiritual, emotional, and intellectual reflections on “me” and what I want my interactions with others to look like in achieving a common goal. What don’t I want as a leader? What do I want as a leader? What is required of me to be a leader? How will I lead?
Artifacts: Being my induction course into post-secondary education this course was initially intimidating and overwhelming, but I soon embraced it for the depth of insights it had to offer. It laid exactly the right foundation for the rest of my coursework. There was so much to gain from this course, but major artifacts for me came from very specific revelations. Leadership and the New Science(Wheatley, 2006) blew my mind, and Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 2000), Heraclitean Fire (Carey, 1999) and especially The Courage to Teach (Palmer, 2007) opened my heart. These courses had me realizing that my more universal and spiritually connected approach to leadership may actually have a place in organizational theory. It culminated in the initial iteration of a Philosophy of Leadership.
ORGL 605 – Imagine, Create, Lead – Dr. Michael Carey, Dr. Kristine Hoover, Dr. Suzanne Ostersmith, Dr. Adrian Popa
Competencies: This was my first immersion course and it was powerful. The course is designed to place students in experiential situations that will help participants experience, describe, analyze, and evaluate the dynamics of the creative process. We learned how to enhance our own creativity, imagination, and organizational effectiveness in our work as leaders through the application of the principles of Ignatian imagination personally and professionally. It also was an introduction to the Gonzaga mission and what the relationships and engagement with peers, staff, advisors, resources were going to look like.
Artifacts: This immersion was life-altering. Not only did I find how “seeing and seeing again” could help reframe every situation, personal or professional, but the emotional, long-lasting connection created with fellow classmates shocked us all. The movement in dance section was a surprise. The leadership principles demonstrated provided a safe place to be vulnerable and to connect as a group. These were things that were foreign to me in my career up to that time. I used to think my desire for reinvention was purely personal, but through deeper exposure to Ignatian imagination, I am now able to see and see again the origins and future impact of this fascination. My repurposed library cart project into a standing design desk helped illuminate how my need for purpose and creativity can be made manifest in more than just DIY projects.
ORGL 515 – Leadership and Human Potential – Dr. Lunell Haught
Competencies: This class was intended to provide us established organization development techniques to facilitate open communication and that encourage greater innovation by nurturing intrinsic motivation and engagement of people within an organizations’ systems and communities. It is meant to build a confidence around embracing your sense of inquiry, an open mind. It helped us hone a sense of analysis for if, when, and how the tools presented might be valuable resources for change agents and leaders in our own organization.
Artifacts: I leaned in hard to this course. Past personal and professional experiences were case studies in how to and how not to promote dialogic organizational development, conversations that matter, and how best to embrace curiosity and encourage innovation. I found Conversations Worth Having (Stavros, 2018) to be a highlight and the papers and presentations to be a great conduit for learning some of the principles and disciplines that will carry me forward as a leader.
ORG 515 DOD Appreciative Inquiry Presentation – Robin Bishop
ORGL 518 – Transforming Leadership – Dr. David Houglum
Competencies: Transforming Leadership is designed to be an examination of the dynamics of transformation and how leadership can facilitate transformation, both within individuals and in organizations. This course guided us in asking, What is transformation, and How can transformation be facilitated in individuals and organizations? The goal is to enable each leader to:
- Describe/interpret their experience of organizational life from the perspective of health and effectiveness
- Develop a working definition of transforming leadership, both individually and in an organizational context
- Apply course content in understanding his or her organizational experience
- Move towards developing a plan for his or her own transforming leadership practice.
Artifacts: Immediately following the learning high of ORGL 515, Transforming Leadership kept me engaged in the journey and reflective of my career and personal life to that point. While the review of literature and case studies was immensely informative, I was altered by writing my transformation story and reading A Hidden Wholeness (Palmer, 2004). The literature, movies, and other resources incited a focused energy in me. It was an enlightening and exciting period of learning how to analyze and frame past and future transformation experiences while helping me home in on my real passion in helping current and future leaders find how transformation can take place where they exist within their organization.
ORGL 610 – Communications and Leadership Ethics – Dr. Steven Walker
Competencies: This course walked us through how ethics intersect with leadership and communication, both personally and professionally. It was broken into two halves. The first half had us reflect on personal ethical development and decision-making, and how it reflects our character, competency, and integrity. The second half presented moral dilemmas that regularly occur in organizations and society as a whole. We explored the complexity of morality and how dilemmas can be addressed through application of ethical principles, the tools for which were presented throughout.
Artifacts: There was an immense number of articles, literature, and resources available to us in this course. While I feel like we can often over analyze certain subjects to encapsulate them into specific principles, Parker Palmer once again cut through noise to help me hone my leadership ethic platform.
- Do not be ashamed of the “different” outlook I bring to my organization.
- Leaders are just human and are just as twisted around the axle as we are for the most part. Working to open dialogue and understanding may not be comfortable but may pay off in the long run.
- Value, exhort, and encourage ethical leadership at any and all levels of the organization and in personal life.
- Embrace the gap, learn from it, grow in it, and help others do the same.
Through these things I was encouraged to continue to practice the strengths depicted in my LPI, such as Challenging the Process, Enabling Others to Act, and Inspiring a Shared Visions, as well as continuing to grow in areas I have historically kept in check in order to fit in, like Modeling the Way and Encouraging the Heart. Through continued self-awareness, growth, learning, and embracing the tension between the shadow self and true self I feel I will readily meet my leadership beliefs and encourage them in others.
ORGL 523 – Psychology of Leadership – Dr. Joseph Albert
Competencies: This immersion course focused on leadership and personality, emotional intelligence, and attachment theory, and it was one of the most hard-hitting courses I had the fortune to participate in. Through lecture, discussion, hard-hitting class exercises, film and readings we were led through a reflection on the importance of self-awareness for leaders, personality issues in leadership success and failure, and the role of attachment theory in our own journey towards greater self-awareness. The content focused on understanding the psychological challenges of being in a leadership role and how to interact effectively with those who behave in ways that are less than productive for the organization.
Artifacts: The text for this course was initially humorous. However, as I dug into Raising a Secure Child(Cooper & Powel, 2017) I was reminded that we are all human and come to leadership with our own history, framework, and lenses to see leadership challenges and daily interactions through. I gained insight as to why certain people just rub me the wrong way and how my “shark music” can keep me from fully committing or embracing a situation with the confidence I could. Any course that has you dig into your upbringing, come face-to-face with your biggest hang-ups in a public place, is bound to have meaningful and poignant outcomes. This course helped me realize how critically important emotional intelligence is in leadership and how to help recognize others where they are along their personal growth path.
ORGL 516 – Relational Dynamics Organizational Development – Dr. Heidi Scott
Competencies: This course focused on seeing and changing organizations through the research, theory, models, and practice (praxis) of the field of Organizational Development (OD). It highlighted how leaders, as mid-level managers or OD consultants, can support all members of an organization, and introduced multiple methods, tools, and technologies used to implement major change effectively in organizations.
Artifacts: The human-centric approach in organizational development explored in this course naturally aligned with my leadership philosophy and constructing our sustainable change agent strategy clarified my leadership purpose and belief to another level. The OD resource library each of us created is going to be regularly referenced in the future, I’m sure.
ORGL 516 Humble Consulting Team Presentation
ORGL 517 – Organizational Change Transformation – Dr. Kristine Hoover
Competencies: This course highlighted concepts of organizational change, health, and transformation, and helped us develop a profile of a healthy organization that we used as a guide to practice organizational diagnosis and intervention methods. The tools and structure provided opportunities to practice leading change and build an individual action plan. Utilizing change management theories, we explored situational approaches with common foundations in a real-life simulation setting. It focused on change leadership as a critical skill in helping organizations achieve their goals and visions.
Artifacts: This immersion was another enlightening and instructive milestone on my leadership journey. Learning many different tools and analyzing how each can be applied to healthy and transformational change was relatively painless for this less-analytical leader. The simulation really allowed us to act as a change leadership team to see if we could successfully coach an organization through a transformation. Wow. Very eye-opening to the complexities and necessity for approaching such an endeavor with the appropriate tools. Reflections on my own career sourced a case study to apply what I had learned.
ORGL 615 – Organizational Theory and Behavior – Dr. Michael Aucoin
Competencies: The purpose of this course is to encourage a deeper understanding of the complexities of organizations. It is designed to provide exposure to organizational theory, organizational issues and processes, and strategies and tactics useful to successful organizational leaders and followers alike. This course helps participants attain new skills and capabilities, new awareness and sensibilities, and new attitudes and beliefs embedded within the following learning objectives:
- Develop an understanding of how to plan, establish, and maintain an organizational structure and the importance of organizational strategy
- Develop an understanding and the capacity to build a network of effective relationships exploring the nuances of working with varied demographic backgrounds and the advantages and disadvantages of different communication and influence strategies
- Understand the leader’s role in designing and leading effective teams by understanding the multiple factors that shape the design, dynamics, and effectiveness of groups.
- Develop the knowledge and skills related to understanding and re-invigorating or changing organizational culture
- Develop an understanding of and capacity to use systems dynamics.
Artifacts: This course was my most challenging. I am a big-picture dreamer and an out-of-the-box problem solver, so the analytics and minutia studied was a challenge. I easily grasped the theory and was able to articulate the strategies instinctively but applying those in the graphs and pictures was a hurdle. That being said, the Everest Simulation in a team setting was one of the best learning tools I’ve ever engaged in. Our team worked really well together, but the coursework challenged us to push beyond the surface to ask the harder questions that were necessary for successful completion of our ascent. The teachability of this simulation and the articles, books, and resources was eye-opening in a very real and relevant way. The largest artifact I am taking away from this course is my new passion and awareness of learning organizations.
ORGL 620 – Leadership Seminar 620 – Dr. Adrian Popa
Course Competencies: This class is the final capstone on our Gonzaga Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership. It asks us to reflect on what we learned and will carry with us into the future. These reflections are then applied to a culminating project that applies teachings that most impact our leadership philosophy and future in leadership.
Artifacts: Outside of the portfolio, the synthesis of my journey through recognizing artifacts, and the overall reflection on this incredible journey, the critical artifacts I will leave this course with is a finalized leadership philosophy and an outline for a book that my Gonzaga studies have ignited a strong passion for.