Course Outline

Course Outline and Schedule

Session 1 - Introduction

  • The need for a Leadership course
  • Focus areas for leaders for sustainability
  • Expected learning outcomes

Session 2 - Basic Concept of Leadership 

  • Leadership, leaders, and leading
  • Leadership and management
  • Authority and responsibility
  • Map for leadership
  • Leadership and morals
  • Leadership and culture
  • Seeing yourself as leader
  • Mapping your leadership journey

Session 3 - Trends and Insights in Leadership 

  • Heroes, relations, and situations
  • Transforming, inspiring, and influencing
  • Building on strengths
  • Skills that make a difference
  • Emotional intelligence and awareness
  • Leading across boundaries
  • Gender issues in leadership
  • Leading teams

Session 4 -  Art of Leadership Development

  • Research findings for leadership development
  • Boundary-spanning leadership
  • Strengths-based leadership
  • Personality types and learning styles
  • The 70-20-10 rule
  • Cultural dimensions of leadership
  • Personal leadership development plans
  • Authentic leadership and balancing power 

Session 5 - Research on Leadership

  • Fostering government-corporate-society partnerships
  • Engaging younger leaders as partners
  • Multiplying leadership collectively
  • Recognizing and cutting through complexity
  • Leveraging sources of power
  • Using action logics and memes
  • Enabling key dimensions of capacity
  • Choosing the appropriate leadership style

Session 6 -  Introduction to Sustainability 

  • Global Mega-Trends
  • Cities and Waste
  • Discussion Topics

Session 7 - Post Development Agenda 

  • Rio +20 Background and Process
  • Millenium Development Goals
  • Sustainable Development Goals
  • Discussion Topics

Session 8 & 9 - Areas of Sustainability 

  • Biophysical
  • Socio Economics
  • Energy
  • Food

Session 10 - Indicators and Assessment 

  • Frameworks
  • Tools and Models
  • Common indicators(GDP, HDI, etc) and their relevance to sustainability
  • Selecting appropriate frameworks and indicators 
  • Making decisions under uncertainty 
  • Actions for improvement

Session 11 - Approaches to Sustainability 

  • Framework for process 
  • Strategic thinking
  • Planning
  • Coordination
  • Implementation 
  • Case studies and hands on exercises

Session 12 - Leadership Challenges 

  • Corporate challenges for sustainable development
  • Leadership challenges in implementation of sustainability
  • Measurement issues related to corporate social and environmental performance 
  • Responsible leadership: Issues and problems 
  • Case Discussion

Session 13 - Political Leadership, Civil Society Leadership & Sustainability 

  • Understanding sustainability in broader political, social and geographic context
  • Political and social foundation of sustainability
  • Role of civil society in environmental protection
  • Government strategies for sustainable development 
  • Case discussion

Session 14 - Business Leadership and Sustainability 

  • Corporate strategy and sustainable business development
  • Leading change towards sustainability 
  • Development of vision, mission and goals and strategies and building a sustainability strategy for business
  • Implementing ISO 26000 (A new standard for social responsibility)
  • Identification sustainable business practices and evaluation of corporate social and environmental performance
  • Linking business and society through CSR for competitive advantage
  • Case discussion

Session 15 - Innovative Leadership and Breakthrough Thinking 

  • The first example clarifies the ideas on which the MDG strategies was based on and the aims of the strategies.
  • The second example clarifies the ideas and discussions that led to the declaration of the decade on sustainable education

Session 16 - Bioliteracy and Innovation for Regenerative Development

  • Bioliteracy as a pragmatic application of scientific knowledge
  • Biomimicry as the design thinking approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation 
  • Regenerative development as a paradigm to preserve and recover ecosystems

Session 17 - Innovative Leadership and Breakthrough Thinking II 

  • To illustrate that sustainable development will depend heavily on successful urban strategies.
  • The first example show that the Netherlands is not only a country but increasingly becoming just one city.
  • The second example will show that the biggest urban agglomeration of China is Pearl (River Delta) City, once one overcome existing political and administrative borders.
  • Please note that the topics listed below may be subject to change