Professor:
Doreen Gounaris
Required Reading:
Judge, T., & Robbins, S. P. (2008). Organizational Behavior (13th Edition) (13 ed.). Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall.
Mintzberg, H., Ghoshal, S., Quinn, J., & Lampel, J. (2003). The Strategy Process: Concepts, Context, Cases/ 4th Edition/ INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL (4TH ed.). upper saddle river: Pearson Education.
Yukl, G. (2009). Leadership in Organizations (7th Edition) (7 ed.). Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall.
Ancillary Reading:
Babauta, L. (2009). Power of Less, The: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life. New York: Hyperion. [Link]
Godin, S. (2008). Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Ottawa: Portfolio Hardcover. [Link]
Synopsis:
Leadership is one of the core competencies I looked forward to attaining through this MBA program. I have always advanced rapidly to leadership roles in my career, but I wanted to find the systems and skill set that made that progression possible to enhance that ability. With the right toolbox, anything is possible!
After reading Tribes by Seth Godin I was really hoping to get that brilliant inspiring capability. Not to be. This leadership class was based on the notion that personality types dictated inter-office relationships, and ultimately overall employee performance. Ms. Gounaris was a big fan of the Myers-Briggs Personality Tests to determine and navigate blending the personality types. I had a slightly different opinion.
I completely agree that personality types greatly influence relationships, and are a core component to the office dynamic. The differing of opinion is that rather than believe that hiring should be done based on a personality profile, I feel a leader (speaking not of a manager, but an executive pay grade) should possess the ability to recognize the needs of his employees and feed the employee what they require to become excellent.