Spring 2013 - 62935 - PA388L - Advanced Topics in Management

Psychological Foundations of Leadership & Management

This course is designed to acquaint you with the field of psychology and its applications to leadership in organizations and to management. It also seeks to develop individual self-awareness and interpersonal competence, insights and skills that I believe are crucial to effective leadership and management. The class is conducted as a seminar, with a minimum of lecturing and a strong emphasis on student participation and discussion.

Among the topics we will consider are personality theory, depth psychology (Freud and Jung), perception and cognitive psychology, the stages of adult development, employee motivation and mental health, humanistic psychology, and the dynamics of family systems. The emphasis is on the understanding of how insights offered by these various subfields apply to organizational leadership and management.

Students will keep a personal journal during the course which will include your reactions to course readings and discussions, personal insights, relevant life events, and so forth. This journal will form the basis for a paper due at the end of the course in which students are asked to identify major themes identified during their journal writing.

Readings are a combination of core readings and book reports presented by students. A take-home essay at the end of the course will ask students to consider several topics addressed during the course; there is no final examination. Those with questions about the course are encouraged to get in touch with me at schott@mail.utexas.edu.