This spring I am teaching an upper-level leadership seminar. In this course, we will review research and theory on leadership and discuss the most compelling questions about leaders and leadership. I am inviting you to join us.

Each week we will post some of the lessons learned, review some of the class discussion, and wrestle with questions about leadership and its importance to society. In addition, students will work on developing their own leadership skills in the class, so there will be plenty of tips for your own leadership development.

The idea is for you to follow along virtually. Hopefully, you will get the sense of being in the class as we explore leaders and leadership. I'll try to provide links for additional information and for your own study of leadership topics. And, you can join in the discussion with your own comments and questions via this blog. I'll share with the class and with you.

Let's begin. First, let's talk about the course content and expectations. The course is, as you can imagine, very psychological in nature. Psychologists have studied leadership for more than 100 years, so there is a rich background of theory and research on the topic. In the course, we will use a textbook by Richard L. Hughes, and his coauthors, Ginnett & Curphy (6th edition). Of course, I don't expect you to buy an expensive, new text, but you can find older editions of this book, or other leadership texts, on-line for a few dollars. Besides the Hughes book, I recommend the texts by Northouse and one by Yukl. You could even pick up a copy of an early edition of my I/O psychology text for as low as 33 cents and read the chapter on leadership.