Leadership a, week 2 individual assignment: case analysis companion
Leadership A, Week 2 Individual Assignment: Case Analysis Companion
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Purpose of this Case Analysis Companion
This Case Analysis Companion is meant to help support your reading and prepare you for meaningful engagement with your group. It will be submitted and scored for completion, but you will not receive TA feedback.
Assignment Instructions:
As you read the case The Woman in the Corridor, use this Case Analysis Companion to help you identify the main facts of the story it tells, and to reflect on and analyze those facts.
Part I: Thinking about the Facts of the Case
Part II: Case Analysis
These questions will help prepare you for your group work, which is to answer this question: Should the narrator pay for Chantou’s second surgery?
The case ends on this question of whether the narrator will pay for a Cambodian patient’s medical care. But this is just one of many times that the narrator has faced a decision about taking responsibility for an individual’s medical and living expenses.
| Decision to Make | Empathy Response | Compassion Response |
|---|---|---|
| Support or oppose gay marriage? | I support it because my best friend is gay and I don’t want her to be discriminated against. | I support it because it’s unfair to discriminate against people based on their sexuality. |
| Donate to cancer research? | I’ll donate because I saw my brother-in-law suffer through cancer and I don’t want others to experience that suffering. | I’ll donate because millions of people suffer with cancer every year and we need to find ways to stop it. |
| Vote to decriminalize homelessness? | I’ll vote in favor of this because I wouldn’t want the homeless woman I see outside my office every day to be arrested. | I’ll vote in favor of this because so many people are homeless; we need to help them, not arrest them. |
| The narrator ends the case with the question "Could I pay?" because this is the most difficult decision she has faced yet. This time, her decision to pay is not based solely on alleviating the suffering of those around her, but rather, on the personal connection she has made with Chantou. She is now faced with a moral dilemma of whether to help an individual whom she has come to know and care about, or to uphold her own principles of not providing financial help to those in need. This makes the last instance of someone asking her to pay more problematic, as she must now weigh her own personal values against the needs of the individual. |
Part IV: Empathy v. Compassion
Discuss how Bloom’s argument about the difference between empathy and compassion influences—or does not influence—answer to the question of whether the narrator should pay for Chantou’s operation. Write down key takeaways below (these can be rough notes or bullet points).
Part V:
| The decision to pay for Chantou's second surgery should be based on compassion rather than empathy. Compassion is the more sustainable option, as it allows for more emotional distance from and intellectual understanding of other people’s pain. The narrator has already made a commitment to help Chantou, as well as several other families, so it would be compassionate to help her through her surgery as well. It is clear that the narrator is committed to providing these families with the help they need, and paying for Chantou’s surgery is an important part of that commitment. |
