For four days this June, a cohort of students traded lectures for something far less comfortable: an authority vacuum.
From June 8th to 11th, Dean Marc Ostfield and co-instructor Dr. Jeffrey Wolper taught Leadership and Authority in Groups, a nontraditional course built around direct experience. Students spent full days — 9:00 to 5:00 — cycling between small task groups with no assigned leader and structured breaks to reflect on what had just unfolded.
Feeling like they didn’t have a clear leader or authority directing tasks, students confronted the same questions real leaders and organizations face constantly: Who steps up? How does influence form? What happens to a group’s cohesion when it feels like there’s no structure? How do my actions help or hinder the group? The breaks were welcome opportunities to reflect on what was happening, as students worked to name what they’d observed and strategize their next move.
The format is demanding by design, and it showed in the response: feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive, with many students citing it as a rare chance to understand group dynamics from the inside rather than from a textbook.
Given the reception, the course will return this fall, running October 9–12. Students looking for a more immersive take on leadership development should keep these dates in mind for fall registration.
