Preparing potential leaders: Facilitating a learning experience on LMX and fairness in the workplace

Abstract

The topic of ethics and its relation to leadership is a pedagogical concern for organizations and educators alike. However, current empirical and instructional approaches to leadership still lack a critical perspective on the topic of fairness. We take an initial step as a response to this gap in management education by introducing a learning activity focused on leader-member exchange (LMX) and its implications for fairness in the workplace. This proposed pedagogical approach incorporates a classroom-based game to emphasize two critical psychological strategies for learning: emotional learning and depth of processing. We hope that this pedagogical approach and emphasis on these two learning strategies will contribute to management education by 1) responding to recent calls to critically appraise and redesign the manner in which we currently teach leadership, particularly as it relates to humanizing the concept and highlighting its workplace fairness components, 2) bringing to light two critical learning strategies known to facilitate the commitment of new information to memory, 3) exposing students to a facet of leadership they are likely to experience in their first professional entry-level positions, and 4) facilitating a discussion of leadership more broadly.