“Leadership Cannot Be Taught”: Teaching Leadership to MPA Students

Abstract

This article presents an approach to teaching leadership that employs in-class exercises to build three sets of skills: decision-making, collaboration, and negotiation. It provides a detailed explanation of these teaching techniques based on 11 years of experience with MPA students, highlighting the benefits of the appropriate sequencing of games, the use of debriefing as a pedagogical tool, and the value of patient observation and risk-taking by the instructor. The success of the approach is assessed with student survey data.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keith D. Revell

Keith D. Revell is an associate professor in the School of Public Administration at Florida International University in Miami. He is the author of Building Gotham: Civic Culture and Public Policy in New York City, 1898-1938 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). His research interests include urban policy and economic development and his work has been published in Studies in American Political Development, the Journal of Policy History, and the Journal of Urban Affairs. A sample of the syllabus for the leadership course described in this essay can be found at www.fiu.edu/~revellk/leadership.htm.