Study Questions

SES # TOPICS STUDY QUESTIONS
1 Introduction to the two-year LGO journey  
2 Traits vs. situational leadership; Leading and following  
3 Distributed leadership

MacGregor Case

  1. Is McGregor a good leader? Why or why not?
  2. What are the key elements of his leadership style?
  3. Would his leadership style work in all situations?

Photovoltaic Case

  1. Why are the Toledo, Long Beach, and Palo Alto organizations having such a tough time getting along?
  2. How does each organization view the other organizations?
  3. Should Linda Choate keep Palo Alto and Toledo separate, merge Palo Alto with Toledo (closing Palo Alto), or merge Toledo with Palo Alto (closing Toledo)?
4 Team processes  
5 Transformational leadership

Lou Gerstner & IBM Case

  1. Assess Lou Gerstner's leadership style and actions.
  2. What specific things did he do to orchestrate the turnaround of IBM?

Hank Kolb Case

  1. What is the cause of the problem?
  2. How do you respond to the Greasex problem?
6 Don Davis/Bill Hanson  
7 Leadership development planning and alum panel  
8 Leadership, ethics, and authority (Leigh Hafrey)
  1. How is Diana, alive or dead, a problem for Queen Elizabeth?
  2. What does Tony Blair have to teach the queen, and she him? What values do the two of them espouse, and where do their convictions meet?
  3. How would you describe Diana's power, in Britain and around the world?
  4. Have you encountered people like Sir Thomas More—or Henry VIII, or Cromwell, or Rich—in your work? How do they function as colleagues? What is their sense of their profession?
  5. Can one speak of multiple spheres in the world Bolt portrays in A Man for All Seasons? If so, does each have its own rules or morals, or do the inhabitants of all of them apply the same standards to their behavior?
  6. "Affection goes as deep in me as you think, but only God is love right through, Howard; and that's myself (p. 122)." What is a "self" in Bolt's play, and what roles does it play for all of us in society and in our organizations?
9 Leadership: Innovation and social control (Leigh Hafrey)
  1. To what extent do Peralta's surf rebels embody an ideal, and what is it?
  2. How do you account for the cult following that surfers like Greg Noll have acquired?
  3. Can we capture and replicate the freshness of innovation without killing it?
  4. As you look at Joy, Kurzweil, and others, what conclusions can you draw about the ethics of science, and its alignment with business ethics?
  5. How does Hawken, Lovins, and Lovins' vision diverge from the norm of business practice today? Does their argument feel practical to you?
  6. Who decides what our future should look like?
10 Leadership reaction course  
11 Reflections on summer teams and leadership