Abstract

Simulation-Based Context-Sensitive Learning of Leadership Skills

Madni, A.M., Madni, C.C., and Sorensen, B.H.

Abstract

With operational missions becoming increasingly more complex, it is not surprising that leadership skills development has become a major priority. Not surprisingly, the training community has embraced simulation-based training (SBT) as the preferred approach for learners to cost-effectively experience a variety of leadership problems and situations. Today, SBT is becoming increasingly more popular for training individuals in soft skills such as leadership, cultural awareness, and interpersonal communications. However, despite its manifest advantages, traditional SBT approaches continue to have certain deficiencies (e.g., lengthy update cycles, high cost of authoring, programmer-oriented authoring, lack of pedagogical under-pinnings) that prevent their widescale adoption and institutionalization. Fortunately, recent advances in outcome-driven simulations, intelligent agents, and graphical authoring approaches have made it possible, in principle, to finally overcome these limitations. Even so, the realization of a low-cost pedagogically-driven SBT system requires making certain key tradeoffs that have a substantial impact on both the learning experience and system development costs. This paper presents a cost-effective, pedagogically grounded, simulation-based learning approach to leadership skills acquisition. Potential applications of this approach for leadership skills development are homeland security, international peace keeping and disaster relief missions, and global supply chain creation and management.

From:

Madni, A.M., Madni, C.C., and Sorensen, B.H., Proceedings of the Integrated Design and Process Technology, (IDPT-2007), Antalya, Turkey, June 3-8, 2007.