Em­bod­ied Lead­er­ship

Course content

Course content and structure

Through the course, students will be introduced to common leadership challenges in contemporary work-life and how these challenges can be understood and addressed by using a range of perspectives on leadership as a contextual, political, collective, and embodied process. That leadership is contextual means that the effectiveness of any concrete act of leadership depends on the context in which it occurs. That leadership is political means that it always takes place within a field of power dynamics that must be understood and navigated. That leadership is collective means that the phenomenon of leadership is not bound to a single individual and that designated leaders, therefore, must be as much at home with following as with leading. That leadership is embodied means that somatic experiences play a crucial role in guiding how leadership is enacted. No single perspective is enough. The effective leader is able to shift between perspectives as needed to understand and address leadership challenges.

During the course, students will be presented with a range of leadership theories, which will be re-examined in the light of new findings in experimental psychology and cognitive science.

The course will bring the theory to life through exercises where students are invited to put the concepts, theories and perspectives into practice. The goal of the course is to change the way students perceive the world – including what the students give their attention to and regard as important – in such a way that they will gain access to a broader range of leadership behaviours and be better equipped to make informed choices between these leadership behaviours. To achieve this objective, each session will contain exercises designed to gain practical experience with the theory in a practical context.

The course will draw on cases from the lecturer’s own research on hard leadership challenges as well as cases from his daily work as executive coach.