Development as a leader (5 cr)

Evaluation scale

Pass/Fail

Content scheduling

Autumn 2024 – 2 ECTS
0.5 ECTS Course orientation and learning outcomes
1 ECTS Theoretical background of leadership theories and concepts
0.5 ECTS Ethical Leadership

Spring 2025 – 3 ECTS
1.5 ECTS Self-knowledge and leadership identity
1.5 ECTS credits Self-leadership, agency and leadership career development

Objective

Purpose of the course
Leadership is a key skill in various organisations in working life. Development as a leader course helps students in understanding leadership, enhancing their self-awareness, identifying their personal strengths and areas for development, as well as analysing, reflecting, and developing themselves as leaders. Through self-awareness and reflection, understanding of one’s own leadership is increased, and enabling the planning of a leadership career and potentially even improving one’s career prospects.

It is important to be able to adapt the leadership style to the organisation’s goals. Leadership has various effects on different functions of the organisation, such as communication, conflict management, and decision-making. Understanding the principles of ethical and responsible leadership is important so that a leader can take ethical responsibility for their organisation and employees. This creates a framework for growing responsible, fair, sustainable, and ethical leaders.

The course aims to develop the following competencies:

Learning to learn
You can evaluate and plan your leadership career in a versatile and goal-oriented way.

Ethics
You can promote the realisation of ethical principles in work communities and organisations with your leadership.

The learning objectives of the course are:
You will increase your self-awareness, which will enable you to analyse and evaluate your leadership from the perspectives of self-management, leadership, and management in general. You can apply key leadership theories and concepts to strengthen your own leadership identity.

You can promote the implementation of ethical principles in your work community and/or organisation by reflecting on your ethical leadership and acting as a role model in your organisation. You can plan your leadership career through self-reflection.

Content

Selected leadership theories and concepts
Self-knowledge and self-leadership (values, beliefs, characteristics, traits, behaviour, personality)
Leadership identity
Development of leadership career
Agency in leadership
Ethics in leadership and management

Materials

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications. https://books.google.fi/books?id=gX5ZDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP38&hl=fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Eteläpelto, A., Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., & Paloniemi, S. (2013). What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational research review, 10, 45–65.

Goller, M., & Harteis, C. (2017). Human agency at work: Towards a clarifica-tion and operationalisation of the concept. In M. Goller & S. Paloniemi (Eds.), Agency at work: An agentic perspective on professional learning and devel-opment (pp. 85–103). Cham: Springer.

Scientific article chosen by you

Other material based on independent information gathering

Teaching methods

Study methods
Developing as a leader is a multidisciplinary online course. Your studies take place in the Moodle learning environment, where you will find course instructions, schedules, assignments and study materials. You will also attend webinars. The webinars include expert lectures and you will reflect and share using collaborative learning methods what you have learned. Participating in webinars requires a camera, headphones and microphone.
You will conduct independent information retrieval and apply what you have learned in the Leadership Development Workbook assignment, in which you compile all the assignments of the course.

Guidance
You will receive guidance in voluntary online meetings. In addition, guidance takes place in the Moodle learning environment (forum for question and answer).
You will also receive guidance from peer students and in the form of mentoring.

Feedback
You will get feedback on your Leadership Development Workbook assignment.
You give feedback on the course (mid-term and final feedback on the implementation).

Employer connections

Your student group forms a working life peer learning network.

Exam schedules

-

International connections

During the course, you will utilise international research literature and reflect on the cultural dimensions of leadership.

Completion alternatives

You can familiarise yourself with 17§ of Jamk's degree regulations when considering the recognition of course competence based on your previously acquired competence and the objectives of the course.

Student workload

Your indicative use of time during the 5-credit course is 135 working hours, which is divided as follows:
Online lectures and webinars 6 hours
Familiarization with study material 27 hours
Individual assignment 94 hours
Collaborative learning 6 hours
Mentoring 2 hours

Assessment criteria, approved/failed

You are able to evaluate and analyse yourself and your leadership based on leadership theories and course assignments. You are able to analyse the implementation of ethical principles in your work community and/or organisation by reflecting on your ethical leadership. You are able to plan your leadership career in a goal-oriented and versatile way.

Further information

The learning during the course will be qualitatively evaluated based on the learning outcomes using many different methods: feedback and mentoring from the teacher, the student's own self-assessment and feedback received from peers in webinars.

During the course, the utilization of artificial intelligence, instructions and possible ethical questions follow the updated recommendations of Arene and Jamk's rules.

The participants of the course will be checked three weeks after the start of the implementation. Participation in the course requires that you have submitted Learning Assignment 1 by 22.9.2024.