Module One Critical Thinking & Application Prompts
(Four Prompts)
Prompt 1:
Think about some of your most successful (and unsuccessful) leadership experiences. Now
consider the central social motives described by Aronson (belonging, understanding others and
predicting accurately, control, a need to matter, and trust). Comment on the extent to which
each of these social motives were present in your most successful (and unsuccessful) team
leadership experiences. Finally, describe some leadership strategies that you believe would be
helpful in addressing these central social motives with respect to: 1) people who report directly
to you, and 2) Other stakeholders in your organization (customers, C-suite leaders, etc.)
Prompt 2:
Consider an important decision you recently made (in your personal or professional life). Ideally,
when we make important decisions in our lives, we try to collect all of the relevant information in
order to assess all the possible alternatives so that we can carefully evaluate those alternatives
and make the right decision.
Briefly describe the decision and discuss the extent to which you were evenhanded about the
ways in which you collected the relevant information. How might some of the cognitive biases
discussed in this module have influenced your decision-making process? How might some of
the cognitive biases discussed this week color your perceptions of the efficacy of your decision
now that it’s been made?
Prompt 3:
Depressed individuals are typically caught in a vicious cycle of negative thinking, which leads to
self-defeating behavior, which leads to negative experiences, which increases negative thinking.
What characteristics of “social cognition” help us explain this phenomenon? How might these
characteristics of social cognition manifest in a leader-follower relationship, and what kinds of
strategies might you employ to improve the situation?
Prompt 4:
In your experience, how ubiquitous is tribal thinking in organizations (between departments,
core initiatives, project teams, etc.)? (If you have little experience – yet – in this area, comment
on reasons why one might expect tribal thinking to take place in organizational settings.) What
are the possible negative ramifications of tribal thinking in organizations, and how might these
negative effects of tribal thinking be reduced?
