Division of Public Safety Leadership

Johns Hopkins University School of Professional Studies in Business and Education

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Curriculum

Year One

Year Two

 

  • 705.605 Ethics and Integrity

    Confronted with moral dilemmas every day, people make critical decisions based on their beliefs, which incorporate their core values. Understanding how values are formed and applied is essential to leaders who must guide and assess employees’ integrity and ethical behavior everyday. Readings, case studies, and discussion reveal the ethical dilemmas encountered by executives and supervisors in their daily and long-range decision-making. Students explore various ways executives establish and maintain values and ethical standards as a foundation for organizational behavior. They discover how a commitment to values – such as adherence to the Bill of Rights and fair treatment of all people – influences the public’s opinion of service agencies and the government as a whole. This course includes an on-line writing workshop.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.606 Advanced Leadership Studies

    Determining an individual’s leadership style is an integral first step in understanding how he or she influences change and organizational behavior. Students apply proven and innovative leadership tools to an array of situations in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. They identify ways to approach issues and needs in their own agencies, focusing on accomplishing their intended purpose, attracting and retaining commitment, inspiring employees, and minimizing disruption. In addition to studying a range of techniques applied by highly successful leaders, students examine their own style as it applies to facilitating transformation, interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, creative problem solving, resource management, and consensus building.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.745 Information and Telecommunication Systems

    Reliance on technology to address challenges facing today’s society is extreme. From daily use of cell technology to interagency interoperability, and from personal safety to educating employees, reliance has rapidly moved to dependence. As executives turn to technology to solve problems, they make decisions that often have long-term effects on their agency and could cost millions. Students go from the basic to the advanced as they focus on information sharing and analysis, telecommunication, linking networks and systems, and more. They apply technology to simple and complex situations. They assess needs and solutions, determining the best application of technology and deciding when it reaches the point of overkill. They learn, too, how to judge technology-related information given to them by employees and others. This course is conducted in a computer lab.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.615 Seminar in Change Management

    Within the public sector, change is constant for individuals and organizations. Budget, resource allocation, politics, and labor contracts are among the many factors not in an executive’s control that can drive significant change. Change can be meaningful and rewarding or confusing and, possibly, disastrous. Knowing how to manage this change and use it to the benefit of employees and the people who use and rely on an agency’s services is an essential skill for executives. Students scrutinize select issues dealing with planned and unanticipated change. They consider change that has occurred in their own agency and its affect on resources, employees’ perception of the organization, and people’s satisfaction with delivery of service. They delve into the power, role, and influence of leaders as change agents.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.588 Ethics and Society

    The survival of a society is inextricably linked to the moral and ethical behavior of its people. Students traverse through historic and contemporary events that continue to influence society’s standards – morals, laws, codes of conduct, dissent, and more. Through readings, case studies, and discussion, students sort through the varied theories and philosophies of how a just society is formed and sustained. Students apply their exploration of ethics to daily decision-making in the workplace and in their personal lives. They gain an understanding of the “domino effect” of moral decision-making and how such decisions shape people, neighborhoods, communities, cities, and nations.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.635 Leadership and Organizational Behavior

    Effective leaders routinely take the pulse of their organization and know what it means. They develop a “sixth sense” about what works and what does not. Students assess how leaders influence organizational behavior and the various systems – individual, group, and culture – that contribute to the successful operation of today’s multifaceted service agencies. Through readings, case studies, and simulations, students compare organizational behaviors – including internal communication, quality control, and marketing – to activities in their own agencies. Students employ proven and innovative approaches to assessing organizations and developing ways to accomplish defined goals and tasks. This course includes a field experience.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.713 Managing Differences

    Successful leaders understand and manage differences that go far beyond traditional or stereotypical diversity-related issues. They monitor, analyze, and manage differences stemming from the organization’s internal hierarchy, units with conflicting functions, different agencies, different levels of government, and more. If ignored, these differences may erupt into behavior that hurts all concerned. Students assess differences in goals, values, beliefs, function, rank, race, gender, personality, and more. They discuss factors that drive tolerance and intolerance. Students apply techniques for overcoming behaviors that block individual, community, and organizational effectiveness in diverse settings. Through readings, case studies, and group activities, students compare various strategies for providing quality service to diverse communities.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.724 Building Quality Organizations

    In too many organizations, the term “quality” has become little more than an overused and abused buzzword. Its meaning has been lost to hype. Yet, there are enduring principles to creating and maintaining quality within organizations, such as Deming’s theory of profound knowledge and Juran’s approach to continuous quality improvement. Students discuss theories and notions of quality and its application to various organizational settings. Through several famous corporate and government cases, students apply techniques drawn from diverse models designed to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and value. Through readings and discussion, students explore the success and failure of past systems and movements such as total quality movement.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.719 Crisis Communication Management

    At any given moment, the simplest of situations – a traffic stop, construction accident, inclement weather, sports event – may cause a crisis for a leader and his or her agency. How a leader communicates during a crisis can escalate or diffuse a potential disaster. Political leaders, the community, the media, and others view how a leader copes with a crisis as a measure of his or her success. Through case studies and discussion with public safety leaders, students apply a variety of techniques toward identifying, preventing, assessing, and managing events so that they do not become communications crises. Students emphasize both internal and external communication in their response to crisis situations presented in class.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.700 Management Issues in Psychology

    Effective leaders must know when to apply and how to manage psychological support services for employees. Requiring employees to pursue psychological support, depending on appropriateness, can have a positive or adverse effect on their attitude, demeanor, career, prevention, or recovery. Through readings, discussion, and case studies, students explore common and exceptional situations in which psychological support may be of value and how to counsel and engage employees in the process of obtaining such support. Students gauge the quality of psychological support services. They assess employee reactions to various situations and the short-term and long-term outcomes of psychological intervention.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.750 Case Studies in Management

    Learning through the experience of others is one of the best tools in a leader’s toolbox to build personal skills and organizational strength. Case studies from the public and private sector provide an opportunity for students to examine how organizations work and how managers deal with complex issues in policy making, human resources, resource allocation, field operations, marketing their organization, and more. Through the application of leadership principles learned in previous classes and new ones offered in this course, the class critiques and debates approaches and solutions to a series of cases. Through reading and analyzing case studies, participating in class discussions, and interacting with guest lecturers, students identify strategies for solving problems faced by individuals and organizations. Students identify and present examples from their own agencies relevant to the case studies. Students gain and demonstrate critical thinking skills as they apply their experience to solving the cases presented in class. This course includes a field experience.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.618 Leadership and the Classics

    At some point, every employee assumes a role as leader. For some, regardless of his or her rank of position within the hierarchy, this is a daily role. Are leaders made or born? Are there hidden and obvious messages embedded in times past that provide an answer? Are the characteristics of effective leaders truly timeless? Are there lessons in classic literature to guide today’s leaders? Through discussion and debate, readings from great literature, review of classic films, and more, students discover the themes, strengths, and weaknesses of leaders who have claimed a place in history. Students relate these discoveries to the issues, challenges, and demands they face in today’s increasingly complex work environment. This course includes a portfolio review.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.730 Management: A New Paradigm

    What is the new archetype for managers and leaders? Are good statistical performance and absence of problems going to prevail as primary indicators of a supervisor or executive’s success in providing public service? Do organizations truly learn or do they simply copy or adopt in-vogue programs for the sake of expediency? Students grapple with the answers to these and others questions about the state of management in the nation’s private, government, and nonprofit sectors. They consider factors such as competition, imagination, innovation, special interest groups, changing demands for service, influence of labor, politics, and more in determining how to lead their personnel to accomplish defined tasks. New definitions of structure and function are explored.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.732 Program Effectiveness and Evaluation

    The methods used by leaders to determine if a program has accomplished its intended purpose vary from a brief informal assessment to a highly structured evaluation system. Knowing how to assess a program, function, or situation is not an inherent trait. It encompasses skills that must be learned and nurtured. Many agencies go outside for these skills and spend large amounts on consultants to provide program assessment. Students apply various strategies for evaluating and analyzing programs to functions within their own organizations. They delve into problem-solving models and develop competence in using computer-based statistical and data base software.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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  • 705.710 Leader as Teacher: Influencing Communities and Individuals

    The diversity of today’s workforce – from young entry-level employees to those with long-term experience – presents an array of complex issues to leaders who require specific performance behaviors in the workplace. In this course, students focus on the learning theory and developmental needs of adults in individual and group learning situations, and on the instructional strategies that precipitate learning. This course reinforces the role of leader as teacher. Students explore the construction of outcomes-based programs built on the performance needs of their organization. Classroom activities will model the type of education required for adult learners. Students evaluate the effectiveness of training efforts in their own organization, as well as educational programs offered to the public, and produce instructional materials suited for the adult learner. Topics addressed through lectures, discussions, and readings include characteristics of older and younger adults, managing young and older workers, effect of personal relationships on the job, willingness to learn, understanding and diffusing anger, and more. Students will be able to apply the principles and practices presented in this class to creating a learning organization.

    Notes: This course is only available to students enrolled in Division of Public Safety Leadership programs. (3 credits)

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