How Lives Form Leaders: Plutarch’s Tripartite Theory of Leadership Education

Plutarch’s Parallel Lives was once considered a preeminent source of ethical and leadership instruction. But despite generations turning to the Lives for leadership education, we lack clarity concerning how the Lives cultivate leadership. In fact, Plutarch offers the key to this puzzle in a tripartite theory of leadership education evident throughout his corpus. Leaders should be educated through: 1) philosophical instruction, 2) experience in public life, or 3) literary synthesis – and, ideally, some combination of all three. Plutarch’s Lives, this article contends, exemplifies the third form of education, literary synthesis, which exhibits the influence of philosophical principle and moral character on political conduct. Understanding the Lives as a model of literary leadership education reveals the conditions for written works to cultivate virtuous leaders – the closing consideration of this article.

Using adaptive leadership principles to support Public Health 3.0 in multidisciplinary undergraduate education

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered public health vulnerabilities worldwide, particularly in the hard-hit USA. US public health professionals, regardless of role, may need to exercise leadership in both planned and unexpected situations. This model of practice outside of traditional roles, known as Public Health 3.0, requires adaptive leadership – a systems approach to making progress on complex challenges. Educational programs should improve students’ adaptive leadership competency to prepare them for the public health workforce. This paper aims to provide an educational framework for implementing adaptive leadership instruction for undergraduate students. Design/methodology/approach This paper used experiential and traditional instructional strategies and adaptive leadership competencies to develop a semester-length leadership course for undergraduate students in health, nursing, social science, business and education. Adaptive leadership principles were learned and practiced, preparing students for systemic challenges through the lens of Public Health 3.0. Competencies were assessed pre- and post-semester. Findings Of 248 students, 72% were health professions majors. Students reported pre-post scores on 29 measures of competency, interest, learning and behavioral change. Quantitative evaluations identified statistically significant improvement in all domains. Additional quantitative feedback indicated improvement on the three Kirkpatrick levels of evaluation assessed (reaction, learning and behavior). Originality/value Tiered evaluation methods indicated that this leadership course enhanced participants’ self-reported adaptive leadership learning and competency, as well as intention and ability to translate learning into practice. A broad spectrum of competency development is needed for students entering practice in the Public Health 3.0 era, particularly related to pandemic response.

Introduction

Schools are continuously confronted with various forms of change, including changes in students’ demographics, large-scale educational reforms, and accountability policies aimed at improving the quality of education. On the part of the schools, this requires sustained adaptation to, and co-development with, such changes to maintain or improve educational quality. As schools are multilevel, complex, and dynamic organizations, many conditions, factors, actors, and practices, as well as the (loosely coupled) interplay between them, can be involved therein (e.g. professional learning communities, accountability systems, leadership, instruction, stakeholders, etc.). School improvement can thus be understood through theories that are based on knowledge of systematic mechanisms that lead to effective schooling in combination with knowledge of context and path dependencies in individual school improvement journeys. Moreover, because theory-building, measuring, and analysing co-develop, fully understanding the school improvement process requires basic knowledge of the latest methodological and analytical developments and corresponding conceptualizations, as well as a continuous discourse on the link between theory and methodology. The complexity places high demands on the designs and methodologies from those who are tasked with empirically assessing and fostering improvements (e.g. educational researchers, quality care departments, and educational inspectorates).

A decade of teaching followership: retrospective and guide

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits of incorporating the tenants of followership into leadership curriculums as a means of increasing employee engagement in the organization’s mission. Design/methodology/approach Five years ago, the author reported on the impact instruction in followership had in helping a government agency achieve a significant change in workplace culture. This paper provides an update on the agency’s followership instruction, insights on how development of followership skills can enhance organizational agility, collaboration and engagement and strategies for incorporating followership into a leadership development curriculum. Findings The literature suggests that followers can partner with the leader to advance organizational objectives and enhance outcomes through proactive participation. Evidence from three followership programs suggests that indoctrination in followership principles leads to better understanding of the impact follower contributions play in achieving mission-related goals. Research limitations/implications Much of today’s leadership instruction leverages industrial-age concepts on treatment of followers in the workplace. This type of instruction limits leader/manager thinking on how to best leverage the knowledge-age talents resident in the workforce. This paper suggests that followership instruction increases the potential for followers to make meaningful contributions that enhance organizational agility and competitiveness while simultaneously improving leader strategies for engaging followers. Originality/value Instruction in the principles of followership is gaining momentum in academia and in the public and private sectors. Yet, the number of resources for teaching the subject is limited. This paper provides insights into the impact of teaching followership, suggestions on structuring a followership curriculum and recommends resources for creating meaningful instruction.

The Evaluation of Affective Domain Learning Outcome in Students’ Basic Learning of Electrical Circuit in Vocational Education School

Bloom Taxonomy consists of three domains namely cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Successful learning activity on cognitive and psychomotor aspects needs to be supported by affective domain. This research aims evaluate affective domain in to basic Electric Circuit learning of students in Vocational Education School. This study employed survey research by observing students learning process in BEC subject. Research finding shows that students’ affective domain in BEC learning was categorized high. Recommendations for this research were: (1) in BEC learning, teacher needed to develop students’ affective domain, (2) headmaster as leadership instruction needs to guide teacher so that they will be able to develop students’ affective domain, and (3) headmaster must monitor teacher’s teaching activity.

Leadership Training in Otolaryngology Residency

Although residency training offers numerous leadership opportunities, most residents are not exposed to scripted leadership instruction. To explore one program’s attitudes about leadership training, a group of otolaryngology faculty (n = 14) and residents (n = 17) was polled about their attitudes. In terms of self-perception, more faculty (10 of 14, 71.4%) than residents (9 of 17, 52.9%; P = .461) considered themselves good leaders. The majority of faculty and residents (27 of 31) thought that adults could be taught leadership ability. Given attitudes about leadership ability and the potential for improvement through instruction, consideration should be given to including such training in otolaryngology residency.

A Leadership Development Intervention Program: A Case Study With Two Elite Teams

Most of the leadership training that team captains receive at the collegiate level consists of either receiving a list of books or articles about leadership or a list of responsibilities that they must do with little or no guidance or instruction. Still others will focus on this reading and/or responsibilities with active discussion in the off-season, yet when it matters the most, during the competitive season, time spent on leadership instruction and follow-ups becomes an afterthought at best. Due to the supposed benefits of improved leadership for sport teams, a leadership development intervention program was developed and applied to two NCAA Division I teams who were successful enough to make it to the NCAA National Championships in their sport. Program effectiveness was determined by the teams meeting not only their seasonal goals but exceeding the primary objectives of the leadership development program set by the leadership consultant and coaching staffs, in addition to the favorable feedback provided by the team to the captains during/after the season, and semistructured interviews of the captains postseason.

Book Reviews

Helen F. Ladd of Duke University reviews “The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity” by W. Norton Grubb,. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Examines how inequalities in resources other than money, such as leadership, instruction, and tracking policies, contribute to the deepening divide in the quality and success of American education. Discusses moving beyond money--the variety of educational resources; multiple resources, multiple outcomes--testing the improved school finance with the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of the Class of 1988; when money does matter--explaining the weak effects of school funding; families as resources--the effects of family background and demographic effects; students as resources--the effects of connectedness to schooling; equity and inequality--from static to dynamic conceptions; dynamic inequality--schooling outcomes over time; correcting dynamic inequality in practice--exploring what schools do for low-performing students; making resources matter--implications for school-level practice; supporting the improved school finance--district, state, and federal roles; the implications for litigation of the improved school finance; and the implications for reform--conceptions of schooling and the role of the welfare state. Grubb is Professor and David Gardner Chair in Higher Education at the School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, and Faculty Coordinator of the Principal Leadership Institute. Index.”