ORGL Program
Courses and Artifacts
Foundations of Leadership
Dr. Dung Q. Tran
My Leadership studies began with a deep dive learning and evaluating what I wanted out of the program and what I wanted to become as a leader. This groundwork and introspective journey were the framework for the entire program along with these four questions: What kind of leader do I want to be? What kind of leader do I not want to be? What does becoming this leader require of me? And how does this shape who I am becoming as a leader?
While learning the different frameworks of leadership styles, I was also able to identify that in this stage of my life and career, I identify most with Emergent Leadership. So much of what I want to accomplish is mixed in styles of Servant, Transformation, Authentic but when evaluating how much of leadership is confused with “management”, I realized that leadership is an ever-evolving process that cannot stay stagnate to one style or one concept.
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Artifact: Philosophy of Leadership statement. This paper articulates my early vision of what my core beliefs of leadership are and how they have shaped my style up to starting the ORGL program.
Listen, Discern, Decide
Dr. Dung Q. Tran
Being silent in your thoughts is difficult. Being a good listener is even more difficult. This course was the most rewarding and difficult of the entire program. I truly believe that this needs to be a required course for every human on the planet. I had taken a training course many years ago where the core lesson was “It is not in how you intend communication, but in how someone receives it”. If you are not able to be a good listener, it is going to be very difficult to learn and digest information and communication from others. This class profoundly changed the way I behave on video calls and take notes during meetings.
The other side of the class is being able to sit with your own thoughts and truly have a process for making decisions and evaluating how you respond and react.
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Artifact: The listening style of Lincoln. A review of the movie Lincoln and evaluation of the different style of listening and discernment that Lincoln used during his presidency.
Imagine, Create, Lead
Dr. Michael R. Carey, Dr. Dung Q. Tran, Dr. Kristine F. Hoover, Dr. Adrian B. Popa
This 3 day live zoom course was comprised of seminars around the topics: Leadership and Drama, Leadership as a way to belong/bridge, leadership and Metanoia and finally the Ignatian imagination. While this class was meant to be in person, it was still a wonderful course where small groups were formed, ideas and philosophies shared and debated. The Metanoia seminar was the most rewarding, as our group discussions around the resilience of life and our ever-changing world of covid.
The central theme of the course was “see and see again” where we would discuss ideas and philosophies and then come back them again. This truly allows us to learn from discussions and relook at philosophies after taking time to evaluate them, central to being an evolving leader.
Artifact: Physical artifact based on “see and see gain” I created a flip book of the statements and notes from the class and created a notecard flip book that I keep at my desk. This allows me to go back and see again, all of the lessons and learnings from the course.
Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
Dr. Timothy Keator
I selected this course in hopes of working on my negotiation skills as I work in sales and negotiations (both internal and external) are constantly in motion. However, this course also encompassed evaluating how at a micro and macro level the different principles of conflict can affect negotiations and outcomes of large and small environments.
The central theme of structural violence was new to me, but eye opening of how it can encompass accepted behaviors that are experienced in the workplace (systemic racism, suppression, sexism, unconscious bias, and non-direct physical violence). Peaceful and non-violent approaches to conflict resolution can be difficult for non-dominant groups. I truly gained a deeper understanding of how everything culturally and environmentally are interdependent on how conflicts are resolved and how mutual agreements and peace can be achieved at each level.
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Artifact: Arizona Miners Strike
Organizational Communication
Dr. Josh Miser
One of the goals of this course was to analyze and make recommendations regarding communication and leadership in different settings, while also understanding how communication affects every level of an organization and its culture.
This also became case studies of “what not to do” as each assignment and discussion board post were analysis of situations where leaders were doing a poor job of communicating and then theories of why they were communicating so poorly and the ripple effects into the organizations.
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Artifact: Communication audit
Communication & Leadership Ethics
Dr. Kristine Hoover
This course was a rigorous and necessary exploration of the morals and ethics of leadership and the theories behind them. What we do and say matters and it also matter in “how” we say it and “how” we live it. Do the actions of the leaders match the culture of our organization is? Am I as a leader acting in a way that reflects what my personal and moral values are?
These are very difficult questions that are often overlooked in the name of “hitting the bottom line” or the financial goals of the organization. My biggest learning and take away from this class was centered around authenticity. As a leader, building a team based on the same goals, morals and ethics is key to building the culture of a team and an organization.
Artifact: Critical Analysis Paper
Leadership & Diversity
Dr. Nicholas Whittington
This course challenged my own conscious and unconscious biases I have while also examining them in different environments. We examined, gender, race, sexuality, religion, and class in everything from marketing of toys to educational systemic racism, to treatment of essential workers to how diversity in leadership as a recruitment tool to create best in class organizations.
Through these discussions and readings, I chose to focus my research on how and when children learn racism. As a mother of a toddler (he was turning 1 at the time of the class) as I became fascinated about when children learn about diversity, how they celebrate it and how to not be afraid of tough conversations.
Artifact: Literature Review: How and when do children learn about racism.
Organizational Change - Transformational Leadership
Dr. Nicholas Whittington
When I selected this elective course, I had no idea I would be changing organizations to a start-up wine company. So much of my career had been focused on change management in a negative way, that I was a wonderful learning experience to work on change management models, team goal setting and process in a positive light.
While my organization still struggles with goal setting and project management, the theories, and models I learned in this course have helped guide and start the process in a very positive way. In fact, I plan to further pursue facilitation and goal setting courses.
Artifact: Change/Diagnosis Model Presentation
Organizational Behavior & Theory
Professor B Michael Aucoin
The Mount Everest of classes! I chose to take this as my final course in the program due to the reputation of the course and so that I could draw on all the experiences and learnings from the entire program. This class truly taught a deeper understanding of how we lead our organizations and how we learn as individuals. From coordinating schedules, to having different goals to varying communications styles, this was the best life lesson of working through tough situations in a short amount of time to achieve goals.
While I never want to work with exact clones of myself, it was a great learning experience of how you do want to build a team and who you want to work with when it really counts. It also utilized different key elements from ORGL 535 (Listening) and ORGL 517 (Team Goal Setting processes).
I think the biggest learning form this course was the emphasis on Systems Thinking and how it can have a holistic approach to incorporating multiple elements that effect each other and the total outcome of a project or organization.
Artifact: System Analysis Paper: Memo
Leadership Seminar
Dr. Adrian Popa
The Leadership Seminar is a culmination and reflection of the coursework taken in the Organization Leadership program. I truly enjoyed the time to look back not only at what I had learned in the courses, but how it has shaped my own philosophies at work, at home and in my community. While this course is the last in the program, it is just the beginning of my new leadership journey.
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