This assignment was given during the fall, 2006 semester in ADSU 640 entitled, The
Fundamentals of Education Leadership. This was the final assignment in the course,
which I have only taught twice now. During the second teaching expanded objectives
were included as follows:
The student will:
Analyze leadership styles read in the biography of a leader outside the filed of education
for effective leadership behaviors such as integrity, fairness, and ethics;
Evaluate information and sources critically: examine interrelationships among concepts;
and, incorporate selected information into your knowledge base and value system;
Compare new knowledge with prior knowledge to determine the value added,
contradictions, or other unique characteristics of the information and take steps to
reconcile differences; and,
Investigate differing viewpoints encountered in the literature and determine whether to
incorporate or reject differing viewpoints.
The specific assignment was as follows:
Select a biography of a leader (you admire or wish to learn more about) to read and
examine during the semester and notify the instructor of the book you selected. You are
encouraged to read a biography of a prominent leader outside the field of education to
broaden your perspective.
Read the biography throughout the semester and compare what you are learning from the
biography to what you already know about effective leadership and are learning about
through our weekly class reading assignments, activities and discussions.
Conduct research on your selected leader to investigate differing viewpoints encountered
in the literature and evaluate those sources to determine whether to incorporate or reject
the differing viewpoints in your evaluation of the efficacy of your leader. Be sure to
include the following sources: a scholarly book review; scholarly (journal) articles which
assess your selected leader’s style, characteristics, etc.; a biographical reference; and, an
original work by your leader. Then include these sources in an annotated bibliography
(please refer to handout for specific instructions on how to construct an annotated
bibliography).
Prepare a one page side-by-side comparison of the main leadership ideas you found
valuable in the book with what you have concurrently learned in class and what you plan
to include in your leadership style/philosophy. Be prepared to share this side-by-side
analysis with the class during a 5-10 minute presentation about your leader. On the
evening of your presentation, please be prepared to provide a copy of your side-by-side
and annotated bibliography for each member of the class as well as the instructor.
The results were as follows: Students chose diverse leaders, including: Jesus; Clinton;
Eleanor Roosevelt; Crazy Horse; Oprah; Vince Lombardi; John Kennedy; and, Rudolph
Giuliani. What they learned was equally diverse. They included both personal
characteristics which contributed to the various leadership styles of the group as well as
professional leadership skills, which were part of the leader’s philosophy and decisionmaking thought processes. I expected these results, but did not fully comprehend the
difficulty students would have fulfilling the research requirement of including the
following sources: a scholarly book review; scholarly (journal) articles which assess your
selected leader’s style, characteristics, etc.; a biographical reference; and, an original
work by your leader. It was not due to lack of resources or support of the JMU Libraries,
rather to a lack of research skills and experience on the part of students. Thus, I am most
grateful for this workshop and the advice and guidance of my colleague Claire Clemens. I
plan to further perfect this assignment for next fall with the full knowledge the
assignment is worthwhile in the study of leaders, but more importantly in the
development of scholars.