Course overview
The primary objective of the University of Adelaide is to prepare students for leadership in public and private sectors. This course introduces students to major themes in leadership studies through a multidisciplinary approach, using extensive case studies of political leaders, such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, JF Kennedy, Gandhi, Mao, Thatcher, Reagan, Gorbachev and more recently Putin, Obama, Xi Jinping and Trump. It begins with an analysis of the concept of leadership and proceeds to examine the typology of leadership, including transformational, transactional, situational and charismatic. Finally, it considers the importance of followership and leadership traits, as well as the role of gender and ethics in effective leadership, methods to evaluate leadership and relevance of leadership in the 21st century. Throughout the course, students will be asked to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches to the study of leadership and develop their own perspectives through research projects on political leaders.
Course learning outcomes
- Discuss the concept of leadership
- Compare and contrast various types of political leadership
- Consider the psychological conditions underlying successful leadership
- Take a position in the scholarly debates on effective and ineffective political leadership
- Discuss ethical issues associated with the exercise of political leadership
- Consider the importance of gender in effective leadership
- Debate the significance of leadership in the contemporary world
- Participate in group discussions about contested concepts with confidence and with tolerance for other points of view
- Navigate the large amounts of research material available in this subject through both traditional academic sources and through the use of information technology
- Demonstrate career readiness and leadership skills appropriate for beginning professional practice, including lifelong learning skills characterised by academic rigour, self-direction and intellectual independence
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