COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 291C-11
COURSE TITLE: Active Communicating:
The Art of Inspirational Leadership
UNITS OF CREDIT: 1 Unit
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Rittenberg
E-MAIL ADDRESSES: mark_rittenberg@haas.berkeley.edu
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Sundays, 9 AM-6 PM ,
11/9 & 11/23
PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA 200C—Leadership
Communications
CLASS FORMAT: Skills building, learning
activities, study of inspirational leaders, group presentations and lectures
COURSE
OUTLINE:
Success within any enterprise depends on
leaders having both the knowledge and personal creativity, and on skillfully
communicating that knowledge and creativity. When an individual can align
knowledge and creativity and embody the four powers of presence, communication,
conviction and knowledge they are able to become a more inspirational leader.
In addition, these individuals develop a strong leadership presence.
This advanced leadership course focuses on
the skills, tools, attitudes and behaviors that are necessary to become an
inspirational leader. The course builds
on the basic building blocks of effective communication introduced in
EWMBA200c, drawing from the science of anthropology and the theater arts. These
skills include energy, spontaneity, vocal variety, listening, awareness and
communicating with presence. By drawing on these skills as well as working with
scenes (in order to bring language alive), class participants will have the
opportunity to break out of the box, unleash their passion, develop their
authentic voice and utilize the power of intention through performance.
The course will examine how inspirational
leaders impact their people and their audience through their ability to play a
variety of roles i.e. speaker, storyteller, motivator, facilitator, coach,
mentor, collaborator, and teacher. Class
participants will progress to leadership journey work where they will have the
opportunity to discover and and craft their own leadership story, discovery and
working on our personal values, how we became the leader we are, and
personal/professional aspirations for the future serve as a major component of
the inspirational leadership curriculum.
Class readings, lectures, and discussions
address participants' specific workplace applications.
Course Objectives:
1.
To become an
inspirational leader who motivates, inspires and connects to the thoughts of
others.
2.
To understand the
benefits and applicability of the actor's discipline to professional
communication needs and the expression of one’s own creativity.
3.
To increase the
awareness of communication as the main resource of developing inspirational
leadership.
4.
Focus on the
skills set and the ability to play the various roles necessary to be an
exceptional inspirational leader including good speaker, storyteller,
motivator, facilitator, coach, mentor, and teacher.
5.
Study noted
inspirational leaders and how they became and remain the forces that they are
today.
6.
To discover
personal values and personal leadership stories in order to draw upon these
resources on becoming an inspirational leader.
REQUIRED
READINGS:
Rittenberg, Mark and Joyce Duffala "The Active
Communicating Survival Kit"
Tichy, Noel "The Leadership Engine –
How Winning Companies Build Leaders at Every Level"
BASIS
FOR FINAL GRADE:
Course
Requirements:
1. Attendance during all hours of the course.
2. Participation in a coaching session between the first and second class.
3.
Essay submission that relates in-class activities and reading to observation of
inspirational leaders.
Grading Criteria:
30% in-class exercises and participation;
25%
scene performance;
20%
coaching session;
25%
final written assignment
Assignments:
For the
First Class:
·
Come
prepared to share with the class your key learning from the Leadership
Communication class (200c) that you took during the first year at Haas. What did you learn that you have continued to
incorporate into your day-to-day communications in your professional and
personal lives?
·
Read: The Art of Leadership Presence (aka The Active Communicating Survival Kit) - pp.
vii-viii, 1-10; at least 3 Skills (Act I); at least 1 Scene (Act II).
·
Think about
a scene you’d like to perform on Day 2.
Between
First and Second Class:
·
Read: The Leadership Engine - Chapters 6
“Values” (pp. 130-159) and Chapter 9 “Tying It All Together” (pp. 216-236).
·
Attend a coaching
session to rehearse your performance piece.
Written Assignment:
Write a feature article for a newspaper where you profile an inspirational
leader from your family, personal life, or professional life. What are their leadership characteristics and
capabilities? How do you know they are
an inspirational leader? What has been your experience? Which leadership
practices do they engage in? Who are the
people they motivate and inspire? How does this inspirational leader change or
improve the lives of those they motivate and inspire? What are the results?
Include a
box in the article where you summarize their best practices.
The article
should reference any of the inspirational leadership practices covered in class
as well as other practices that are unique to a given inspirational leader
Finally, the
article should conclude with the lessons students of leadership can learn from
this person.
Each article
should be the quality of New York times/Wall Street Journal and should be
between 1,500-2,000 words and should include a picture of the inspirational
leader if possible.
Due Date TBD. Email to mark_rittenberg@haas.berkeley.edu
BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH:
Dr. Mark Rittenberg is CEO of Corporate
Scenes, Inc. and is the designer of ACTIVE COMMUNICATING corporate education
programs. He served for seven years as Associate Professor at Lesley College
Graduate School. He currently serves on the core faculty of the Walter Haas
School of Business, University of California at Berkeley where he heads the
Leadership Communications program for the evening/weekend MBA students as well
as for the Berkeley Columbia MBA program.
In 1985, Professor Rittenberg was
visiting Artist and Teaching Fellow at Harvard University where he conducted
seminars in the Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Business School.
In 1993, he was awarded the J. William Fulbright Senior Scholar awarded by the
United States Information Agency and traveled to Soweto, South Africa, where he
served as Diversity Specialist in building black/white relationships in South
African corporations and education institutions. He returned to South Africa in
1994, 1995, and 1996 in order to implement Active Communicating Educational
Programs as a communication intervention to assist corporate and political
leadership in the transition to a multicultural, democratic, non-racial South
Africa. His doctorate in International and Multicultural Education is based on
his work in South Africa.
Dr. Rittenberg evolved the ACTIVE
COMMUNICATING methodology from his own background as an actor and director. The
methodology draws upon acting skills and anthropological principles in skilling
managers, aspiring leaders and the critical mass in becoming both powerful
communicators and authentic leaders. He currently provides educational programs
and executive coaching programs for corporations including, Lucent
Technologies, AT&T, The Gap, Levi Strauss, Lockheed Martin and Sandia
National Laboratories. In addition he heads an annual Executive Coaching
Institute at UC Berkeley where he trains new executive coaches as well as
executives who want to avail themselves of a coaching training in order to
become more effective leaders.
Recently he served as chief designer and
consultant for the National Principals Leadership academy conducted at
Washington University in June 2009 dedicated to high school principals becoming
coaches and mentors for teachers teaching in disadvantaged situations. The
leadership academy was funded in part by President Obama’s White House
initiative dedicated to building better schools through outstanding leadership.