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I have to admit that I take a socially-constructed (or constitutist) approach to leadership and therefore ask my students to highlight their own leadership examples and then discuss with their classmates whether or not they see them as leaders as well. This opens up the debate regarding the nature of leadership and whether it is in the mind of the beholder or something leaders 'possess'. I find that using cases (particularly written ones) misses vital elements of leadership and relies upon the writer's assessment of leadership rather than those interacting with or assessing the leader.

Jon

Dr. Jon Billsberry

Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Open</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> <st1:placename w:st="on">Business</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">School</st1:placetype></st1:place>

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Some Harvard cases that I've used and liked for teaching leadership (particularly in ambiguous and change contexts) are:

Charlotte Beers at Ogilvy & Mather

Peter Browning at Continental White Cap (old but classic, and has a good video)

Implementing the Nissan Renewal Plan

Xerox Multinational Development Center (also has a related case called John Clendenin for more individual-level analysis)

----- Original Message -----

From: krishnakumar <sukrish1@VT.EDU>

Date: Thursday, April 26, 2007 10:42 am

Subject: Leadership Cases

> Hello All:
>
> This group has been extremely helpful with suggestions and
> recommendationsabout teaching and research. Thank you for that.
>
> I would like to make a request to the esteemed members of this
> group. I am
> scheduled to teach a course on leadership in Fall 2007. The class
> is going
> to be made up of mostly undergraduates and MBAs. The previous
> discussion on
> leadership syllabi and textbooks were very helpful to me. I wanted
> to see if
> anyone has any recommendations on leadership-related cases. I did
> check the
> Harvard Business cases website, but also wanted to get your
> suggestions.
> Any help in this regard will be appreciated,
>
> Sincerely,
>
> S. Krishnakumar (Kumar)
>
> Doctoral Candidate
>
> Virginia Tech
>
>

Laura Guerrero
PhD Student
Richard Ivey School of Business
University of Western Ontario
lguerrero@ivey.uwo.ca

Kumar,

I really like the HBR cases.  But I also use "live cases" a lot.  I would take Dell Computers' Michael Dell, for example, because the company is not too hot anymore. I would get the students involved in the research of the whole situation themselves.  And go from there!

Hope this helps!

Ivan Blanco

I am definitely biased since I wrote a couple of chapters in this book, but it may be helpful to you.

Cases in Leadership (The Ivey Casebook Series) (Paperback)
by W. Glenn Rowe (Author)

Description (from Amazon.com):

The Ivey Casebook Series is a co-publishing partnership between SAGE Publications and the Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario. Due to their popularity in more than 60 countries, approximately 200 new cases are added to the Ivey School of Business library each year. Each of the casebooks comes equipped with instructor's resources on CD-ROM. These affordable collections will not only help students connect to real-world situations, but will benefit corporations seeking continued education in the field as well.

Cases in Leadership is a unique collection of 30 real-world leadership cases from Ivey Publishing plus fourteen practitioner readings from the Ivey Business Journal. This casebook helps business students gain a better understanding of leadership and enables them to be more effective leaders through their careers. The selected cases are about complex leadership issues that require the attention of the decision-maker in each case.

Key Features

• Presents real-world cases related to leadership: Cases illustrate the complex nature of leadership in organizations from around the world.
• Provides an entire chapter on Strategic Leadership: This chapter introduces students to a concise description of leading-edge thinking on Strategic Leadership.
• Generates classroom discussion: Cases let students grapple with actual decisions that real-world managers have faced.
• Offers much more than a packet of cases: The author provides summaries of concepts, helpful discussion questions, and readings for each chapter.

Accompanied by High-Quality Ancillaries!

Additional instructor material including cases notes, preparation questions, discussion questions, and suggested further readings are available on CD.

Intended Audience

This supplemental text is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate leadership courses taught in management departments, schools of public administration, and communication departments. It is organized to work especially well in conjunction with the Fourth Edition of Peter Northouse's Leadership: Theory and Practice, (SAGE, 2007), but is suitable for use with any standard textbook on leadership.

http://www.amazon.com/Cases-Leadership-Ivey-Casebook-Glenn/dp/1412950171/ref=sr_1_1/103-5250230-2266206?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177601237&sr=8-1

Laura Guerrero
PhD Student
Richard Ivey School of Business
University of Western Ontario
lguerrero@ivey.uwo.ca

From: Organizational Behavior Division Listserv [mailto:OB@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of krishnakumar
Sent: April 26, 2007 10:43 AM
To: OB@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Leadership Cases

I teach this course, and one of my assigned readings is Wendy Kopp's book, One Day All Children.  She is the founder of Teach for <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>, and developed this program as part of her senior thesis at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Princeton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>.  It's a fantastic example of the joys, frustration, pain, exhaustion, elation of leadership.  I also use Cohen and <st1:place w:st="on">Bradford</st1:place>'s book, Influence Without Authority as a common text for the course.Another part of the course is to ask each student to read and write a thorough, chapter-by-chapter digest of a book on leadership (I supply a reading list but let them add books if we've discussed the book).  Each student provides a copy of his/her synopsis with the others, we assign these readings as course material, discuss the books, and therefore get a lot more insight into the literature on leadership than we otherwise might.

Cheers,

Susan

Dear Kumar,

I like, Glenn below, am biased.  I use Level Three Leadership with the attached syllabus (which includes the list of cases and exercises I use) to good effect.  I offer it for your consideration.  The "levels" refer to Level 1: visible behavior, Level 2: conscious thought, and Level 3: semi-conscious values, assumptions, beliefs and expectations (VABEs)about the way the world is or should be.  Level One Leaders attempt only to influence behavior (a Skinnerian approach),  Level Two Leaders attempt to change the way people think (the university approach), and Level Three Leaders attempt to tap into peoples' core beliefs about the nature of the world... and this is much more powerful than either L1 or L2.  I've posted a teaching note on an exercise/oral case on my web site that illustrates this beautifully...  If you have time...

http://faculty.darden.virginia.edu/clawsonj/pdf/Chamberlain.pdf

As for cases, you may also wish to consider Bob Johnson at Honeywell Aerospace A (a Darden case) about the leadership style and challenges facing a CEO running a $13B 30K employee business. 

If you have any questions, I'm happy to respond as you wish.

Overview of L3L 3^rd Edition:   http://faculty.darden.virginia.edu/clawsonj/HTML%20DATA%20and%20LINKs/L3LBookPage.htm

Amazon Page for L3L 3^rd Edition:  http://www.amazon.com/Level-Three-Leadership-James-Clawson/dp/0131469029/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-5083819-4705502?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177614165&sr=8-1

PS:  Fourth edition is in the works.

Regards,

Kumar,

I really like the HBR cases.  But I also use "live cases" a lot.  I would take Dell Computers' Michael Dell, for example, because the company is not too hot anymore. I would get the students involved in the research of the whole situation themselves.  And go from there!

Hope this helps!

Ivan Blanco

I am definitely biased since I wrote a couple of chapters in this book, but it may be helpful to you.

Cases in Leadership (The Ivey Casebook Series) (Paperback)
by W. Glenn Rowe (Author)

Description (from Amazon.com):

The Ivey Casebook Series is a co-publishing partnership between SAGE Publications and the Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario. Due to their popularity in more than 60 countries, approximately 200 new cases are added to the Ivey School of Business library each year. Each of the casebooks comes equipped with instructor's resources on CD-ROM. These affordable collections will not only help students connect to real-world situations, but will benefit corporations seeking continued education in the field as well.

Cases in Leadership is a unique collection of 30 real-world leadership cases from Ivey Publishing plus fourteen practitioner readings from the Ivey Business Journal. This casebook helps business students gain a better understanding of leadership and enables them to be more effective leaders through their careers. The selected cases are about complex leadership issues that require the attention of the decision-maker in each case.

Key Features

• Presents real-world cases related to leadership: Cases illustrate the complex nature of leadership in organizations from around the world.
• Provides an entire chapter on Strategic Leadership: This chapter introduces students to a concise description of leading-edge thinking on Strategic Leadership.
• Generates classroom discussion: Cases let students grapple with actual decisions that real-world managers have faced.
• Offers much more than a packet of cases: The author provides summaries of concepts, helpful discussion questions, and readings for each chapter.

Accompanied by High-Quality Ancillaries!

Additional instructor material including cases notes, preparation questions, discussion questions, and suggested further readings are available on CD.

Intended Audience

This supplemental text is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate leadership courses taught in management departments, schools of public administration, and communication departments. It is organized to work especially well in conjunction with the Fourth Edition of Peter Northouse's Leadership: Theory and Practice, (SAGE, 2007), but is suitable for use with any standard textbook on leadership.

http://www.amazon.com/Cases-Leadership-Ivey-Casebook-Glenn/dp/1412950171/ref=sr_1_1/103-5250230-2266206?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177601237&sr=8-1

Laura Guerrero
PhD Student
Richard Ivey School of Business
University of Western Ontario
lguerrero@ivey.uwo.ca

From: Organizational Behavior Division Listserv [mailto:OB@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of krishnakumar
Sent: April 26, 2007 10:43 AM
To: OB@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Leadership Cases