Master of Science in Leadership

Telling stories is no easy task, and telling good stories that people actually want to listen to is even more challenging. Throughout the course of taking MSLD 500 Leadership Communication I have learned many communication techniques, but what may end up being the most impactful is verbal communication and presenting. Most of the time in my career, I find myself speaking to people live, over zoom, or on the phone. It is more seldom that I am required to submit a written report.   Image from: https://minutes.co/how-to-grab-an-audiences-attention/ It is easy to tell when I am telling a boring story. People lose eye contact with me. They look at the time, or they might even start scrolling on their phone for entertainment. Julian Treasures provided some excellent and useful information about telling stories “that people want to listen” to (QuickTalks, 2016). In his TEDTalk Treasures lists the seven deadly sins of speaking. They include gossip, judging, negativity, complainin...

Deciding to pursue a degree at an institution of higher learning is a serious undertaking that can have several different motivations. For some adult learners, furthering their education is about maximizing earnings; for others, education is about expanding their mind. A student of Leadership Development can fall into either camp. A student who is focused on absorbing the entire body of information about organizational leadership is interested in learning information with the hopes that the new knowledge can help them in the future or in their career. A student interested in learning how to think like a leader may look instead at their studies as an exploration into the systems of thinking that a leader may employ. Each motive for learning will lead to different outcomes and, more importantly, different levels of understanding and capacity to think things through. In Learning to Think Things Through G.M Nosich provides a distinction about the differences between these two ways of appr...

When I first started my journey into thinking about my thinking, I truly thought that I was an excellent critical thinker. My jobs in social services and nonprofits required me to use my best judgement and reflect on the circumstances in front of me. Reading Learning to Think Things Through and The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking empowered me with criteria to use in analyzing my own thinking. The 8+ Elements of Reasoning, and Essential Intellectual Traits are tools I can now use to ensure that my thinking is in fact sound, reflective, and critical (Nosich, 2012; Paul & Elder, 2020). Reflecting on my thinking process when I started this study, my thinking was not in fact critical thinking at all. Just this weekend, I came across an article at forbes.com by Siegel (2020 June 30) that resonated with me:      There’s an old saying that I’ve grown quite fond of recently: you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. When most of us “re...

Can I be dedicated to thinking critically with intellectual virtue and still effectively serve my organization as a leader? This may depend on my role. I’ve worked for many organizations throughout my career, and I find that the larger the organization, the more closed off they are to critical thinking and questioning. This could simply be due to the fact that in smaller organizations I've been able to speak directly with the Executive Director and CEO, but in government operations, and corporate business, the top of the leadership chart is often much further away. If I’ve learned anything in my Masters of Science in Leadership program thus far, it is that a strong leader and therefore a good critical thinker, lives in question (Nosich, 2012). Questions are the tool through which we dissect and understand our lives and the world around us. When children ask questions we welcome their curiosity and encourage it, but as we enter the professional world our questions are often met with...

Mayor Van Johnson for the City of Savannah gave a press briefing on July 14th 2020 at 11:00 AM as an update to the state of the Coronavirus pandemic in the City (WJCL, 2020). In this press briefing the Mayor made an appeal to the denizens of the city to carefully follow the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and to brace for additional recommendations and Emergency Orders by the City if necessary. This writing will be an exercise of going around the 8+ elements of reasoning on the question at issue of the city ordinance requiring face masks in public spaces (Nosich, 2012, p. 49). On June 30th of 2020 the City of Savannah passed an emergency order requiring face coverings in public places within the city limits. The purpose of this order, as stated by the Mayor, was “to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus disease,” within our city (WJCL, 2020). The order was drafted with information from federal, state, and local experts on the disease in mind. This information fr...

My favorite classes in my undergraduate studies related to rhetoric and epistemology. Through my minor in Editing, Writing, and Media I took my first look at critical thinking as we analyzed the origins of knowledge. My personal definition of critical thinking is reflecting on how and why we come to the conclusions that we do in order to ensure we are making the best decision with the information at our disposal. This definition aligns quite closely with Richard Paul’s definition as described in Learning to Think Things Through; “ Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking, while you’re thinking, in order to make your thinking better .” This definition resonates with me as it homes in on the metacognitive nature of critical thinking and highlights the relationships between epistemology and critical thinking ( Nosich, 2012) . This kind of reflection is central to thinking critically. Having arrived at some basic understanding of how critical thinking operates in my studies, my...