How Steven Sample and Warren Bennis Teach Leadership to USC Students

"The Art and Adventure of Leadership" (MDA 365)
A course for juniors and seniors taught each spring by President Steven B. Sample and Professor Warren Bennis

About the Course
Examples of Required Reading
How Students Are Selected
Guest Speakers
For More Information About the Course

About the Course
Each spring President Steven B. Sample and Professor Warren Bennis co–teach "The Art and Adventure of Leadership," a popular course offered to juniors and seniors by application only.

Enrolling some of the university's best and brightest undergraduates, the course exposes students to the study and practice of leadership in many settings. Drawing from several academic disciplines, the course explores leadership in theory and practice, examining the lives of leaders such as King David, Socrates, Cesare Borgia, Elizabeth I, Thomas More, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Pope John XXIII, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Margaret Thatcher.

Whether the leadership style being studied is charismatic, autocratic, direct, indirect, informal, amoral, or immoral, students are exposed to the variety, complexity, and paradoxes of leadership, and they are encouraged to develop a personal approach to leadership. As the course title indicates, Sample and Bennis believe that leadership is an art, not a science–a way of being, not a formula. Their goal is to raise more questions than answers, and to encourage students to think critically.

Examples of Required Reading
The course is renowned for its eclectic readings. These include Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's The Prince, Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Leo Tolstoy's essay "Rulers and Generals Are History's Slaves," Thomas Carlyle's essay "The Hero as King," Gandhi's Story of My Experiments in Truth, George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant," and the inspiring "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr. These classics are complemented by the latest thinking on human nature and motivations in selections from best–selling author Daniel Goleman's Working with Emotional Intelligence, Garry Will's Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership, Irving Janis's classic study Groupthink, and "The Art of Failing" by James Atlas.

How Students Are Selected
From among nearly 200 applicants with GPAs exceeding 3.8, 40 students with demonstrated leadership experience, evidence of leadership potential, or plans to pursue careers requiring leadership are hand–picked by a committee led by Professors Sample and Bennis.

Guest Speakers
Each semester guest speakers share their wisdom and experience with students in the course. Students interact with leaders who have made contributions in arenas ranging from politics and business to cinema and the arts. Recent guest speakers include former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis; political analyst and author Arianna Huffington; Cecil "Chip" Murray, senior pastor of the dynamic 17,300–member First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles; Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan; and film director Robert Zemeckis.

For More Information About the Course
Students describe the course as "unparalleled," "inspiring," and even "life–changing." As a consequence of the course, students report changing majors and even long–term career goals. One student comments, "I am a better person, teacher, mentor, student, scholar, researcher and writer because I have worked with Sample and Bennis and been influenced by their brilliance." Consistent with the caliber of students selected for the course, many go on to the most selective graduate and professional programs in the nation and follow vigorous career paths in a rich variety of fields.