WilliamPessemier
Phone: 303-419-0599
Hello and welcome to the course. I would like to tell you a little bit about my background. I spent twenty five years in the fire service in a number of positions, from firefighter to fire chief. While I started my fire service career in the Seattle area, I retired about four years ago as the fire chief for the Littleton Fire Department in Littleton, Colorado.
I hold a masters degree in Public Administration form the University of Illinois and am currently working on a Doctoral Degree in Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver. In addition, I am working this semester as a Visiting Associate Professor at OklahomaStateUniversity.
As you can tell from my picture, I love to fly fish. This picture was taken on the TongariroRiver in New Zealand. My other favorite activities are skiing and hiking.
Course and Term / PAD 5006, Leadership and Professional Ethics
Spring, 2008
Course Description / Catalogue Description:
Examines theories and skills of effective public leadership. Emphasizes critical thinking, normative decision making, the role of values in public policy and management. Ethical theories and principles commonly used in public administration and policy are be emphasized.
Instructor Description:
In almost any position within any organization, you will be both a leader and a follower at the same time. In the complex, ambiguous and conflicting world of public administration, it is particularly important for members of public organizations to understand what leaders do, how they to it, and how to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership from different perspectives.
Effective leaders and followers are able to compare, interpret, and evaluate their own roles, responsibilities, skills, and abilities, as well as those of other members of the organization. This course is designed to help you improve and increase your ability to analyze and evaluate your own leadership capacity as well as those of others in order to help make you a more positive and constructive contributor to your organization and the public you serve.
Leaders make decisions. Both the process of decision making and the actual decision will have an impact on all levels of an organization. Leaders in public organizations are often faced with a difficult decision or an ethical dilemma. For these reasons, it is important to be able to identify ethical dilemmas, apply ethical reasoning to these problems, and to be able to justify and defend your decision. Resolving ethical dilemmas are never easy, but this course is designed to give you more confidence in your ability to apply ethical reasoning and to increase your competence in making ethical decisions that can be supported. This course will also help you to establish your own ethically and morally based process of problem solving and decision making.
The instructional approach to this course is based on weekly readings, weekly participation in threaded discussions, and completion of several practical exercises on self assessment and analysis. In addition, you will be required to submit three papers. Two of these papers are to be completed in a case study format. The third paper is a research paper to be completed in an audit format. The purpose of the first two papers is to demonstrate our ability to compare and contrast the issues and problems involved in leadership and ethical decision making. The purpose of the research paper is to demonstrate your ability to evaluate, criticize and make judgments about leadership and ethics, and to demonstrate your ability to synthesize the relationship between leadership and ethics.
Course Objectives / The overall purpose of this course is to help you develop your ability to provide leadership when necessary, no matter what your position in the hierarchy of an organization, and to do so in a manner this is ethical as well as effective. In order to accomplish this goal, several objectives have been developed in order to provide a basic foundation for the course. Each of these objectives represent what you as a student should be able to do by the end of the course, and include the following:
- Evaluate the factors that influence the effectiveness of various leadership styles
- Compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of their own personal leadership style
- Demonstrate and evaluate the use of an ethical decision making model
- Identify and evaluate ethical dilemmas, identify ethical alternatives, decide on a course of action, and then justify the decision
- Summarize and compare the various styles of leadership
Textbook(s) / Required: Leadership without easy answers -- HeifetzR.A.
HarvardUniversity Press
Required: How good people make tough choices: resolving the dilemmas of ethical living -- Kidder R.
Quill
Required: The ethics challenge in public service: a problem solving guide -- Lewis C. W. & Gilman S. C.
Jossey-Bass, 2nd ed
Required: Leadership theory and practice -- Northouse, P. G.
Sage, 4th ed.
Assignments / Reading assignments:
Complete the reading assignments as listed in the course schedule. With the exception of the first week of the course, readings should be completed the week before the listed due date so the student is ready to participate in the threaded discussion with the reading assignments as background information and knowledge.
Reading exams:
The reading material provides the foundation for the discussion and for the other assignments in the course, so they count for a significant part of your overall grade in the course. A total of five reading exams are scheduled for every three weeks throughout the course. These exams will cover the reading assignments for the respective three week period. If you have read the material, these should be easy. They will be true/false, multiple choice, or short essay answer exams. Each exam will be no more than ten questions.
Threaded discussions:
Participation in the threaded discussions is required each week. Each student is expected to respond to the initial discussion question. With the exception of the first week of the course, each student is also expected to respond with at least one follow-up to the initial response of one of the other students. The purpose of this requirement is to try to get a discussion going about the issues and concepts brought up through the discussion questions. The more you participate, the more knowledge is shared between the students and the instructor, and the more everyone learns.
For the purposes of the threaded discussions, students will be placed into discussion groups of 10 to 12 students per group, depending on the size of the class. The instructor will assign groups by the end of the first week of the course. Each group will be expected to get organized and to select a discussion leader for each of each of the nine threaded discussion sessions. I would also ask that you provide a name for your group. Each group will also need to develop a list of the objectives and tasks that the discussion leader will be responsible for with regard to the discussion they will be leading. The list of discussion leaders, the weeks that they will be leading the threaded discussion for your group, and leader objectives/tasks must be completed and submitted to the instructor by the end of the second week of the course.
Students are expected to submit their contribution to the threaded discussions by the Thursday of each week. The instructor will engage in the discussion after that so the students have a chance to talk about the questions more freely, without the interjections of the instructor anchoring or directing the discussion. After you have made your contribution to your primary discussion group, students are encouraged to review the discussions of the other groups and to engage with other groups if you have a constructive or insightful comment to share.
Practical exercises:
Each student will be expected to complete several leadership related questionnaires. These are listed in the course outline, and can be found in the designated chapters of the text book.
You will also be expected to complete three ethics related exercises. These are the development of a personal code of ethics, an organizational code of ethics, and a decision making model for resolving ethical dilemmas. Due dates for these exercises are listed in the course schedule of assignments.
Personal Code of Ethics: the purpose of this assignment is for you to develop a personal code of ethics based on the values and beliefs that are most important to you as an individual. Develop your code of ethics and then explain why you chose the statements included in your code.
Organizational Code of Ethics: the purpose of this assignment is for you to develop a code of ethics based on the values and beliefs that are most important to you in the context of your work and profession. Develop the code of ethics, explain why you chose the statements included in your code, and also explain the differences, if any, between your personal code of ethics and your organizational code of ethics.
Decision Making Model: a number of models or processes for resolving ethical dilemmas will be presented during the course. Review the course information and other references or resources on models of ethical decision making and develop a model that you think is best. Describe your model and why you think this is better than other models.
Leadership case study paper:
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate your ability to develop an independent analysis of a leadership decision. This paper must be at least 7 pages and no more than 10 pages in length, double spaced, one inch margins, size 12 font. Use the APA format for references, etc.
The student will research and select a case study about a leadership issue, problem, or decision. If you cannot find an interesting or relevant case study, you may choose to develop your case analysis by using an issue, problem, or decision involving an actual organization rather than from a written case study. If you choose to work up your analysis from an actual organization rather than a case study, you will need to write up your notes from the interviews or provide the written material on which the analysis is based. If you use a case study, you will need to provide a copy of the case study along with your paper.
Based on the case study or organizational study, you are to develop a summary of the following: What are the central leadership issues involved in the case? What leadership styles were used to deal with the issue, solve the problem, or make a decision? Why was this leadership approach used and not others? Would other leadership approaches have been more effective? Why or why not? In your opinion, was the leadership demonstrated in this case effective or not? How would you have dealt with the issue, problem, or decision, and how would you have demonstrated leadership? Do not provide a summary of the case itself, just a summary of the central leadership concepts.
Ethics case study paper:
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate your ability to develop an independent analysis of an ethical dilemma. This paper must be at least 7 pages and no more than 10 pages in length, double spaced, one inch margins, size 12 font. Use the APA format for references, etc.
The student will research and select a case study about an ethical problem or dilemma. If you cannot find an interesting or relevant case study, you may choose to develop your case analysis by using a problem or decision involving an actual organization rather than from a written case study. If you choose to work up your analysis from an actual organization rather than a case study, you will need to write up your notes from the interviews or provide the written material on which the analysis is based. If you use a case study, you will need to provide a copy of the case study along with your paper.
Based on the case study or organizational study, you are to develop a summary of the following: What are the ethical issues involved in the problem or dilemma? How would you categorize or classify these issues? Which ones are more important and why? What process was used to resolve the issue, problem or dilemma? What ethical values are apparent in the case? What are the perspectives of the various stakeholders in the case? How would you have handled the ethical problems or dilemmas described in the case?
Leadership and Ethics audit/research paper:
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate your ability synthesize the concepts involved in leadership and ethics. This paper must me at least 15 pages and no more than 20 pages in length, double spaced, one inch margins, size 12 font. Use the APA format for references, etc..
People often make informal and implicit comparisons of leadership and ethics related issues and actions against their internalized values and beliefs. These values and beliefs are used as the criteria against which the leadership and/or ethics issues and actions are compared. The purpose of this paper is to make this process formal and explicit by conducting a leadership and ethics audit.
An audit is a systematic, independent, and documented process for obtaining evidence, which is then evaluated against specific criteria. Explicit criteria are used as a reference against with the leadership and ethics evidence can be compared. Evidence includes documents, records, statements, and information that is relevant to the leadership and ethics criteria. Audit findings are the results of the evaluation of the collected evidence compared against the leadership and ethics criteria.
The objective of this paper is for you as a student to gain an appreciation for the practical aspects of leadership and ethics. The objectives for the participating organization might generally be stated as making a contribution to the development and improvement of an organizational ethics program, or to evaluate the effectiveness of the leadership and followership practices within the organization. However, the specific objectives for the organization being audited should be decided in cooperation with the participating organization.
In order to complete your leadership and ethics audit, you will need to complete the following steps:
- Obtain the participation of a governmental organization. This can be a unit of local government, or a department of state government, or a federal government office.
- Develop the objectives of the leadership and ethics audit in cooperation with the participating organization.
- Develop the leadership and ethics criteria that will be used for the audit.
- Decide how audit information will be obtained. This will involve some combination of a document review, interviews, and observations.
- Conduct the audit.
- Report your findings and recommendations.
Completing and Submitting Work / Participation in an online course requires you as the students to take much more responsibility in terms of taking the time to complete course work and in getting work in on time.
Because this is an online class with no required meetings, you are free to complete the work on your own schedule. However, work is due by Friday the week it is assigned, unless otherwise noted.
All written assignments must be uploaded during the appropriate week so that other students have the opportunity to read and learn from your work. For each week that papers are due, a discussion page is available to submit your papers and to talk about them as well.
Submit your papers as an attachment to a posting within the discussion page.
The purpose of submitting papers this way is to not only learn from each others work, but to provide the opportunity to give constructive, encouraging and positive feedback to your fellow students.
You should expect to spend between 4-6 hours per week on this course. This includes the time you will need to complete the readings, as well as any discussion or practical exercises assigned for that week. Do not expect to succeed in this course if you do not allocate 4-6 hours a week for this class!
Late work is accepted entirely at the discretion of the instructor. Any work accepted late will be graded down a minimum of one full grade. In most cases, only partial points will be given for late work.