Our Leadership Model

  • The Leadership Model
    MRU Student Leadership Model

The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

How is leadership defined? While it might seem like such a desirable skill should be easy to describe, the literature reveals that in reality, there are a variety of interpretations for this concept.

MRU believes that leadership can be learned and applied in many different ways. Rather than narrowing the term to one definition, we have aligned student leadership opportunities to Kouzes and Posner's (2012) Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.

Kouzes and Posner (2012) came up with the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership after analyzing thousands of case studies to determine what competencies leaders demonstrate when they are acting at their best (p. 24). In their book, titled The Leadership Challenge, they explore these practices in detail while emphasizing that "Leadership is not about who you are; it's about what you do" (p. 15). Since what one does can always be adjusted, any MRU student has the potential to become a leader by getting involved and engaging in the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership, as summarized below.

 

Reference

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.