About Leadership London

Seventeen Butler University students will travel to London July 3-24 as part of a new site-based course called Leadership London. Taught by College of Business Dean Chuck Williams, the course will focus on leadership by utilizing the resources, institutions and history of London.

“Every afternoon, prior to our next morning class session, we’ll visit a site in London related to our class discussion,” said Williams. “For example, when we discuss Churchill, we’ll visit the Cabinet War Rooms from when Winston Churchill guided England in World War II, and then discuss the leadership case on Churchill the next morning. The idea of the course is to expose students to different models of leadership through cases and readings on famous leaders and from fiction, such as Shakespeare’s Henry IV and V, which have leadership themes.”

Williams said he chose London for the course because London is one of the largest financial centers in the world. The city is also familiar to him because he taught a similar course for 12 consecutive years at his previous institutions, Texas Christian University and the University of the Pacific.

To prepare students for the trip, Williams had them read a series of articles from The Wall Street Journal as well as chapters from his textbook, Management.

Program participant and junior marketing major Libby Bates said the readings gave her a good idea about the business way of life in England and Europe. “I am really excited now to go over there and see how everything works first-hand,” she said.
In addition to providing students the opportunity to study leadership in a not-so-traditional way, the course was designed to give students the chance to study abroad in a short time frame.

“It is critical for students, especially business majors, to be exposed to different cultures,” said Williams. “Currently 25 to 30 percent of our undergraduates study abroad. To grow that number we need to provide more summer study options like Leadership London, since studying abroad for a whole semester is not always an option for students.”

While excited about just being in London, Bates said she can also see the long-term benefits from participating in the program. “I think it will be really attractive to future employers and give me a definite heads up amongst many of my peers.”