The Leadership course for the summer semester 2020 wrapped up only a week ago. While we would have loved to host Prof. Tracy Maylett yet again in Pforzheim, we are very grateful for how wonderfully he and the students made it work despite the challenges.

Prof. Maylett is a Visiting Professor from the Brigham Young University, Utah and has been teaching this course for 5 years now. Apart from teaching, he is an accomplished writer and the CEO of DecisionWise, a global consulting firm focused on employee experience design and evaluation.

The course is designed to teach students about leadership primarily through deep self-reflection and just that happened. With many opportunities to present, this class was also about building confidence in public speaking and honing your story telling skills. In fact, one of the early readings was about what makes for a good storyteller. The students also learnt the various leadership theories and models as the theoretical part of the class.

With the small cohort size, class participation and stimulating discussions worked perfectly! The different methods of teaching through activities like case studies, article discussions, 360 Degree Feedback participation and a quick online course on motivation and engagement not only efficiently covered a plethora of topics but also brought out the creativities of the students when asked to present their thoughts and learnings at the end of the course. Right from drawing analogies between Jiu Jitsu belts and life stages to calculation backed life graphs, the students used each opportunity to make the best of the freedom of style and content given while presenting many of the assignments.

Since the class was a highly personal and reflective experience, the cohort honored the “Vegas Rule” and what happened in class, stayed in class.

text: Surel Surve
pictures: Surel Surve