CMI-CEUC Urban Context and the Geography of Leadership

Faculty
Eric Guthey

Course Coordinator
Eric Guthey

This course prepares CEMS students to understand and contribute to the dynamics of leadership and governance within institutions, organisations, networks and projects in distinctive urban contexts around the world.

The city has become a key focal point for economic, social and cultural development, as well as the hub of global business activity and growth. Standards of leadership and governance are central to the effectiveness of urban regions around the globe, and to the distinctiveness and attractiveness of cities as places in which to live and to do business. Virtually all CEMS graduates will eventually take up leadership roles in public and private organizations and institutions within urban environments.

It is, therefore, imperative that students develop their ability to “read” a city, and to grasp its leadership and governance dynamics with an eye towards contributing to those dynamics themselves. The course will encourage students to relate these issues in a reflexive manner to their own experiences with cities and to their own understanding of leadership and place. In this way, the students will position themselves as participants in the process of leadership and prepare themselves to contribute to such leadership processes within different urban contexts throughout their career.

At the end of the course, students should be able to:

Individual, forty-eight hour, take-home written exam. Students are responsible for all the materials assigned in the syllabus. Exam questions will require that students demonstrate their grasp of the course materials by applying them to the case of the city they have investigated in their group project. The exam will be graded by the teacher alone.

Class time will include lectures, workshops, case discussions, small group work, and student presentations in which participants will explore theoretical perspectives and apply them to specific place–based case studies. During the first workshop, study groups will be created and assigned a specific urban context that will become their primary focus of investigation during the course. In the last week the study groups will present their findings.

Your main assignment for this course is to show up for every class ready to discuss and analyze the readings for the day in an in-depth and informed manner from a variety of practical and theoretical perspectives, and to participate in small group work that applies the materials from the course to the case of a particular urban region. The instructors reserve the right to "cold-call" on students at any time during class. Students should be able to answer questions about the readings from both the instructors and fellow students in a thoughtful manner that moves the discussion forward.

You should read and analyze each reading and case carefully, perhaps look for supplemental materials that can help you understand the readings more fully, discuss what kinds of theoretical perspectives and practical solutions can help further class discussion, and come prepared to participate actively in the classroom discussion.

During the course, the instructors will ask various study groups to prepare presentations on specific cases. Remember, this is NOT simply a lecture course, and the class as a whole will only benefit to the degree that every student demonstrates the willingness to PREPARE AND PARTICIPATE actively.

Reading assignments will include selections from the following texts:

· Brad Jackson & Ken Parry (2008) A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership. London: Sage.

· Joseph Badaracco (2002) Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Business Press.

· Richard Florida (2008) Who’s Your City? New York: Basic Books, Random House.

Readings will also include a number of cases and articles available for purchase and/or download online.

Via the CBS CEMS Office.