The “Reverse Case Study:” Enhancing Creativity in Case-Based Instruction in Leadership Studies

In this application brief I share a case study assignment I used in my Leadership in Complex Organizations classes to promote creativity in problem solving. I sorted Ph.D. students into two teams and trained them to use creative writing techniques to encode theory into their own cases. A sense of competition emerged. Later, teams swapped cases for analysis and decoding. The approach became known as “reverse case study.” Summative course evaluations revealed four important instructional themes: (1) students were able to apply and learn leadership and organizational theories, (2) students were able to build rapport and create bonds with fellow students, (3) students explored creativity, and (4) students explored the perspective of “the other.”