Values determine who we are (the BEING part). Values-based leadership is when leaders create visions, make decisions, and lead and motivate their organizations/teams by the values truly lived by them and modeled in their everyday behaviors and activities (the DOING part). This one-credit course will focus on examining what and how values help to shape and enhance leadership and will provide opportunities for students to reflect the values that drive them when their decisions would have impact onto multiple stakeholders. How to voice values will also be a leadership testimonial and hence will be an important topic covered by this course. Through lectures, case studies, and class discussions and debates, this course will help students to better understand the important role of values in leadership and be able to stick to and manifest their believes and values when they exercise their leadership in their teams and organizations.

Upon completion of the course, students are expected to

• Understand the concept of values-based leadership
• Understand what and how values help to shape and enhance their leadership
• Gain a better understanding about their own values and be able to reshape, if necessary, a set of values that could represents their beings
• Be able to make appropriate choices based on their values in the situations in which stakeholders’ interests conflict
• Learn to effectively voice and enact their values and understand the source of courage needed for doing so as an effective leaders

The course will meet once a week for a total of 8 weeks in Module 1, with each class being 95 minutes long and no breaks in between. Students need to read some articles, book chapters, or cases and write a short analysis outline based on the readings by briefly answering a few study questions provided by teaching faculty before each class. A weekly journal will be required as a homework assignment for students to reflect on the most important takeaways or to further discuss some issues they feel necessary to dig into.

The grade of the course will be pass/fail. No prerequisite is needed.