Leadership & the Good Life

What makes a good life? What does it mean to live a flourishing life? What does leadership have to do with a life well lived? These are difficult questions that require intellectual muscles many of us have left untrained; we need one another’s help to ask and answer them.

We will explore these questions by engaging with various philosophical and spiritual traditions, featuring visits from contemporary individuals who aim to shape their lives by some of the traditions in question.

Along the way, we will dive into texts from some of the great thinkers specifically related to leadership and the role of a leader in cultivating a good life for one’s individual benefit as well as for the sake of a community.

Throughout world history and in contemporary practice, leaders participate in spiritual expression to: 1) cultivate individual and communal identity; 2) address progress, endure suffering, or make meaning; 3) develop ethical/moral paradigms for decision-making. This seminar explores the relationship between leadership and the good life (broadly conceived).

Through reading, guest lectures, service-learning, group discussion, and written reflection (given its “W” designation), this course utilizes various disciplines as an interdisciplinary “I” course (e.g. philosophy, ethics, communication studies, medicine, poetry, psychology, anthropology, literature, astronomy, women’s and gender studies, and sociology). Most often, the course will draw upon the broad fields of philosophy, literature, and leadership studies. The course pays special attention to issues of: religious privilege, inter-tradition (and non-tradition) dialogue, and spiritual expression and influence.

Assignments

"Good Life" Essays

1. Paper #1: 3+ page articulating WCU’s vision of leadership and the good life
2. Paper #2: 4+ page research word paper analyzing the vision(s) of leadership and the good life that a tradition not addressed in the course advocates or implicitly endorses
3. Paper #3: 5+ page paper outlining your own personal vision of leadership and the good life

“Leadership and the Good Life in West Chester, PA” Anthology Project

• The class as a whole will create a leadership anthology that highlights influential leaders in the West Chester, Pennsylvania community. The anthology aims to link leadership theory and practice, encourage conversations around living life well, and celebrate community members who exemplify students’ understanding of good leadership.
• Select a leader.
• Submit a feature article for peer review.
• Final draft (after peer review).
• Submit 1-2 page reflection.
• Final sociological synthesis group paper due by final exam period.

Workbooks

For each tradition, philosophical perspective, or synthetic topic, students will read assigned texts, view videos, or listen to podcasts. You’ll submit each workbook after completion for evaluation of reading notes, live and learn, activities, and tradition synthesis.

Small Group Participation

• Students are expected to actively participate in all class sessions—both by speaking and by listening generously.
• To prepare for class and have informed discussions, students should bring their readings and reading notes to every class. Reading should include (at least) three salient quotes from the text with page numbers, three observations, and three questions.
• Students will play peer leadership roles throughout the small group discussions.