Leadership Lab:

A “learning lab” course where students can practice, take risks and learn about who they are as a leader and how they behave in relationships with others.

The premise of this class is that leadership is based on a number of interconnected skills, and that these skills can be developed with intentional, authentic practice and feedback. This class offers you the opportunity to develop your ability to lead in multiple contexts:

• Leverage: How to lead when you are not in the room.
• Catalyze: How to lead when you are not in charge.
• Improvise: How to lead when you are in the room, and things are not going in the way you “want” or think is best.

Course summary:

Students will have a unique unprecedented opportunity to courageously explore: 1) How they impact others and how others impact them and 2) How they invite and influence others to action? 3) What helps/hinders them personally in building open, effective rewarding relationships.

This course focuses on “who” a student is as a leader, taking an inside out, experiential approach to leadership development, and using real-time feedback to understand the impact we have on others.

During this course, the cohort will develop as an authentic learning community, students will be challenged to increase their self-awareness, paying particular attention to their assumptions, biases and patterns. The authentic, in-the-moment group collaboration, learning and feedback will enable students to increase their capacity for empathy and their ability to hold different perspectives.

This course is capped at 12 students in order to maximize individual and group learning and maintain the integrity of the here-and-now teaching modality. In order to engage multiple perspectives, this course is cross-listed with several graduate programs at UT.

Format: 3 credit course. The Leadership Lab Course will be designed and lead by Charlee Garden. Please contact Professor Garden charlee.garden@utexas.edu with any questions about how the course may fit your learning goals.

Course Goals:

• Learn about who you are as a leader in relationship with others. How do you impact others? How do others impact you? What are your conscious and unconscious patterns as you relate to people?
• Practice being “the leader you want to be” through authentic, leadership experiences
• Learn “how to learn” from ALL your leadership and interpersonal experiences.

Course Format & Design:

The Leadership Lab Course will be designed and lead by Charlee Garden. For detailed requirements and expectations, please click here to view the course syllabus from a previous semester.

The course integrates the best practices from Stanford, Yale and NTL for creating an authentic leadership learning experience. The format and design for the Leadership Course is highly informed by the following academic researchers: Carol Dweck, David Bradford, Amy Edmondson, Geoffrey Cohen, Chris Argyris and BJ Fogg.

The learning is created through the following three distinct components:

• Here & Now Based, Human Interaction Lab
• Interactive Lectures
  Skill & Concept Based, Leadership Lab
• Learning & Integration
  Peer Buddy Coaching, Reflection Journal

NOTE on Leadership development protocol being used for this course: 
The Leadership Lab pilot is based on the leadership development protocol being used successfully at Stanford, Yale and Rice. The main premise of the model is that people develop as leaders by learning about themselves while leading. The model emphasis intentional reflection and self-awareness, using knowledge as one supportive input for self-discovery and growth.