¾«¶«´«Ã½app

Staffing

Examiner:

Rationale

Leadership is a challenging role and good leadership skills through practice and reflection are conceived. Future leaders can benefit from being able to identify three mental processes that are core attributes of any leadership style namely mindfulness (M), selflessness (S) and compassion (C). Any leader or potential leader can build their own MSC and through a process of discovery, learn how to apply MSC to their people and their organisation. The MSC process begins inwardly with clearly identifying personal cognitive traits. It projects outward to the leader’s team and the organisation. In order for leaders to lead others, it is important to explore self-leadership and to identify personal leadership archetypes. How these archetypes shift leader mindsets is important. The emphasis therefore is on self-discovery and how mindfulness determines the concept of ‘focused attention’ versus ‘distracted outlook’. Students should learn how to become aware of others and situations by adopting a selfless and confident approach versus an ego-centric and diffident approach. Through critical reflection and practical observation, students should learn how to apply MSC to increase their own leadership effectiveness and to transform how others think and behave.

Synopsis

'The Leader's Mind' is a course about self-discovery, how to mindfully-lead yourself including the concept of selflessness and getting out of the way of your people and how to develop compassion, self-confidence and humility. Students will explore the value of self-awareness as distinct from self-assessment, and learn about the difference between passion-bias versus inclusiveness. Students will be exposed to several `awareness training' methods through which they should learn to know more about the `self' - what one thinks and why, what one feels and why - and discover what things are consciously considered as important, and why. Importantly, students should learn about the real consequences of leader actions when the leader is not present, has their own agenda, does not focus, is less self-aware, and becomes less effective as a result. When a leader is constantly distracted, they will not be present in leader-led activities such as committees and meetings. In this course, students should acquire new cognitive and behavioural skills that enable them to increase their focus, avoid action for the sake of action, create focused time, and apply a range of ethical practices. They should also learn that many barriers exist to selfless leadership that need to be overcome before becoming an effective leader. Students will be required to work with the cooperation of their supervisor at work and to engage in peer mentoring. Decisions made in relation to mindfulness activities are a matter of reflection. Finally, they should be able to measure their own leadership archetype so that they can match self-assessment with self-awareness.

Objectives

Topics

Text and materials required to be purchased or accessed

Reference materials

Student workload expectations

Assessment details

Important assessment information

1. Attendance requirements:
   
   Online: There are no attendance requirements for this course. However, it is the students' responsibility to study all material provided to them or required to be accessed by them to maximise their chance of meeting the objectives of the course and to be informed of course-related activities and administration.
   
   On-campus: It is the students' responsibility to attend and participate appropriately in all activities (such as lectures, tutorials, laboratories and practical work) scheduled for them, and to study all material provided to them or required to be accessed by them to maximise their chance of meeting the objectives of the course and to be informed of course-related activities and administration.
   
   
2. Requirements for students to complete each assessment item satisfactorily:
   
   To satisfactorily complete an individual assessment item a student must achieve at least 50% of the marks for that item.
   
   
3. Penalties for late submission of required work:
   
   Students should refer to the Assessment Procedure (point 4.2.4)
   
   
4. Requirements for student to be awarded a passing grade in the course:
   
   To be assured of receiving a passing grade a student must achieve at least 50% of the total weighted marks available for the course.
   
   
5. Method used to combine assessment results to attain final grade:
   
   The final grades for students will be assigned on the basis of the aggregate of the weighted marks obtained for each of the summative items for the course.
   
   
6. Examination information:
   
   There is no examination in this course.
   
   
7. Examination period when Deferred/Supplementary examinations will be held:
   
   There is no examination in this course, there will be no deferred or supplementary examinations.
   
   
8. ¾«¶«´«Ã½app Student Policies:
   
   Students should read the USQ policies: Definitions, Assessment and Student Academic Misconduct to avoid actions which might contravene ¾«¶«´«Ã½app policies and practices. These policies can be found at .
   
   

Assessment notes

1. Referencing in assignments must comply with the Harvard (AGPS) referencing system. This system should be used by students to format details of the information sources they have cited in their work. The Harvard (APGS) style to be used is defined by the USQ library’s referencing guide. This guide can be found at .
   
   

Evaluation and benchmarking

In meeting the ¾«¶«´«Ã½app’s aims to establish quality learning and teaching for all programs, this course monitors and ensures quality assurance and improvements in at least two ways. This course:

1. conforms to the USQ Policy on Evaluation of Teaching, Courses and Programs to ensure ongoing monitoring and systematic improvement.
2. and is benchmarked against the internal USQ accreditation/reaccreditation processes which include (i) stringent standards in the independent accreditation of its academic programs, (ii) close integration between business and academic planning, and (iii) regular and rigorous review.