Session Overviews

SES # TOPICS SESSION OVERVIEWS
1 A different lens on leadership

This session will explore the various leadership roles within a restaurant. Your pre-work for the session is to watch the movie Ratatouille. Be prepared to identify who is the leader in the movie (who, when, and why). Peter and Colleen McCarthy, chef and owners of EVOO, will assist in a leadership simulation and share their leadership challenges in managing their three restaurants.

Activity overview (PDF)
2 Leadership fears

All leaders possess fears; whether it is fear of failure, fear of not meeting up to expectations, fear of not making the right decision, etc. Come prepared to write down 2-3 fears that you hold concerning your future jobs and careers. During class we will build upon your own experiences to discuss fears you may likely hold.

We will need several volunteers to present leadership scenarios this week and next. The format for the case presentations (20 minutes each) will be as follows:

  • 2-3 minutes of building the context (i.e., describe organizational setting)
  • 2-3 minutes of presenting the leadership challenge
  • 5-7 minute small group discussion around what others would do in such a situation
  • 3-4 minutes recommendations from the small groups to the presenter
  • 2-3 minutes of presenter stating what happened

Activity overview (PDF)
3 Leading stakeholders with diverse interests This session will focus on leading diversity. We will build off your experiences (using the same format outline in the prior class) to discuss the many faces of diversity (gender, race, cultural, age etc.).
4 Leading high performance teams and final class prep

During the first half of this session, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Gordon IV, USMC, a visiting military Fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies, will share his experiences in building high performance teams. Members of your leadership committee highly recommended Lieutenant Colonel Gordon as a keynote speaker based on a presentation he gave during an IAP Workshop. We will spend the remaining portion of the session preparing for our final class session (details to be discussed in class).

Preparation notes for final class (PDF)
5 Leading transformational change This session will focus on leading transformational change, especially from the middle of organizations. We will once again follow the format laid out for Ses #8. Hence, we will need volunteers to share their experiences.
6 A reflection of your LGO leadership journey For our final class, you will have an opportunity to showcase your LGO leadership experiences. We have invited the LGO co-directors and representatives from the MIT Leadership Center at Sloan and the Gordon Leadership Program to come to class and hear first hand from you what you have learned from your two-year leadership journey. The goal for the session is to share what LGO is doing and help our invited guests think about whether and perhaps how the LGO approach can be adapted to teach leadership to other MIT student groups and programs.