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.