Directions:

You are to write an essay on one of the two topics below. The essay should be about one to one and one-half (1-1&1/2) pages in length (about 300-500 words), typed double-spaced in MS Word, 2003. [SUBMISSION SHOULD BE BY E-MAIL ATTACHMENT  AND NOT BY INCORPORATING YOUR ANSWER INTO AN E-MAIL MESSAGE: <Lawrence.Ulrich@notes.udayton.edu>] You are to (1) recount what the authors you have read on the topic have said, (2) try to relate ideas with each other, and (3) state your own reactions/reflections about the issues under exploration. Please be clear about where your opinion begins. You should not merely state an opinion but give carefully considered reasons for your opinions. Remember that this is a philosophy course and the reasons, which you develop and organize to support your opinions, will be as important as the opinions themselves. Ultimately, you should demonstrate that you (1) have read the text(s), (2) are familiar with the ideas, (3) have thought about them carefully, and (4) have been able to formulate soundly based opinions as a result of the reading you have done.

 

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Topic 1: Basic Challenges to Leadership in Today's Cultural Climate.

 

Topic 2: Describe the Role and Characteristics of a Leader Who Has Influenced Your Life and How This Person Has Favorably (or Unfavorably) Impacted Your Life.

Here is an interesting portrait of one of my "favorite leaders" --- Theodore Roosevelt. It is the concluding paragraph of a fantastic book by James M. Strock, Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership: Executive Lessons from the Bully Pulpit. "In 'The Choice' Yeats wrote hauntingly of the conflict between '[p]erfection of the life, or of the work.' Roosevelt's example of the 'strenuous life' stands in joyous defiance. His personality was not divided against itself. TR combined his extraordinary leadership with a full family life; indeed, his conspicuously integrated personality appears to have been the mainspring of his capacity as a leader. To a remarkable extent, he achieved what Stephen Covey has termed 'an integrated character, a oneness, primarily with self but also with life.' The common element binding his life and work was service. TR believed, 'In the long run no man or woman can really be happy unless he or she is doing service. Happiness springing exclusively from some other cause crumbles in your hands, amounts to nothing.' As Roosevelt intended, those who continue to learn from his leadership find inspiration not only in what he did, but even more from what he was."

 

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