DPLS 772sp09 The Invitation of Leadership

Course:  DPLS 772  The Invitation of Leadership
Professor:  Silvia Behrend
Semester:    Spring 2009                                            
Email:  revdocsil@gmail.com
Phone:    360-352-2559                                              
Office Hours: by appt.                  
Dates:  Jan 15, 29   Feb 12, 26   March 5, 19   April 2, 16

Mission of the Program

The Doctoral in Leadership Studies Program in Leadership at Gonzaga University is premised on the belief that leadership is based on a deep understanding of the self and of the core values that drive one's actions. Thus effective leadership requires the development of a compelling personal vision that engages others by offering meaning, dignity, and purpose. The ultimate aim of leadership is the building of more humane relationships, organizations, and societies.   Effective leaders need to develop the critical imagination required to embrace individual, organizational, and global change from a stance of hope and courage.

“There is something subtle communicated to one who is being served and led if, implicit in the compact between servant-leader and led, is the understanding that the search for wholeness is something they share”            Greenleaf, The Servant Leader

Greenleaf’s axiomatic question for servant-leadership is to ask whether those served are “healthier, wiser, more free, autonomous, more likely to themselves become leaders?” (Greenleaf 1977.)  The servant-leaders’ role is to create an environment based on safety, trust, and confidence where those served will be encouraged to discover problems and solutions themselves by finding their own authority. 

In order to create such an environment, leaders must develop “a deep understanding of the self and of the core values that drive one's actions.” (Mission Statement.)  In the first three chapters of Servant Leadership, Greenleaf posits that such leadership includes possessing  psychological insight, imagination, intuition, authenticity, spiritual grounding and an awareness of her/him self as a whole human being in community with other whole human beings.   This class seeks to articulate a vision of leadership embedded in the necessity for the leader to envision, create, maintain and sustain safe communities. 

We will explore different models of psychological insight with the goal of wholeness and healing.   This exploration will combine the primary tenets of self-psychology and of depth psychology with the praxis of self awareness using imagination and intuition.

We will look at “the notion of authenticity, of self-fulfillment which seems to render ineffective the whole tradition of common values and social commitment” (Taylor1991) in order to answer the question of how to balance self growth with the demands of being in community.

We will examine the spiritual nature of hospitality:  the care and welcoming of the other as a whole and imperfect human being.  This part of the curriculum will be offered as an additional one credit class to be held on a Friday evening and all day Saturday.  

This optional class is designed as a Sabbath retreat based on Judaism’s understanding that the Sabbath is more than simply a time to rest from secular work, it is an obligation to enter sacred time, devoted to learning and discussion of what is core to the community.  The subject of discussion will be our understanding of servant leadership in a multicultural, technologically mobile and diverse work world where the notions of hospitality are predicated on who has the power of inclusion and exclusion.  While the retreat is not required to complete the requirements of the curriculum, it is strongly suggested.  We will also address this issue in class.

Finally, we will explore the relationship of body and soul with creativity.  How do we become attuned to our physical and soul needs what methodologies for self care can we access?   We will be working with various creative media, a $50.00 materials fee to cover the costs of art supplies will be due the first day of class.

This class will explore these five areas through readings and writings as well as through creative processes.  (All assignments are based on the assumptions of the first three chapters of Greenleaf’s book and will require that the students ground their praxis on these principles.) 

Required Readings
Greenleaf, Robert (1977).  Servant Leadership:  A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness.  Read the first three chapters before the first day of class. 

Behrend, Silvia (2005).   “The Art of Community, The Community of Art.” Unpublished dissertation.  Meadville/Lombard Theological School.  Will be available on Blackboard. 

Molz, J. &  Gibson,  S.  (Eds.) (2007). Mobilizing Hospitality: The Ethics of Social Relations in a Mobile World. Vermont:  Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.,

Pohl, Christine (1999).  Making Room: Recovering Hospitality As a Christian Tradition.  Grand Rapids:   Wm. B  Eerdmans Publishing.

Slattery, D. & Corbett, L.  (Eds.)  (2008). Varieties of Mythic Experience:  Essays on Religion, Psyche and Culture . Einsiedeln:  Daimon Verlag.

Taylor, Charles (1991). The Ethics of Authenticity.  Harvard University Press:  Cambridge. 

Assignments
Week 1:  Premise of the class and Introduction to the class:

Greenleaf, Robert (1977).  Servant Leadership:  A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness.  New Jersey:  Paulist Press.  Read the first three chapters of the book before January 15.  Be prepared to discuss the key elements of these chapters.  Your final assignment will be based on this book.