7 Summary of Week 1

This week was dedicated to defining and exploring the value of leadership. You considered how leadership can be differentiated from management and we offered our own definition of leadership, which, as with everything in this course, is of course open to debate and challenge. You started to use the discussion forum and learning journal. If you are studying this course with others in a formal or informal group, you should also have begun to interact with one another, and begun to understand your different perspectives. Finally, the purpose of observation in leadership for your practice was underlined. Observation is a great overlooked dimension of leadership, usually because people think of it as quite a passive activity, but paying attention to the dynamics of organisation is crucial to understanding how to engage positively with others.

Next week, the course moves on to consider leadership as embodied in particular people: the most common way of approaching leadership and a perspective that holds significant pitfalls for organisations, as well as possibilities.

You can now go to Week 2 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .