- Assignment Two (60%)
5,500 - 6,000 words (excluding references, tables and diagrams).
The assignment title is as follows:
An analysis of organizational leadership
Purpose of the assignment
The assignment has two purposes and two main sections. Both must be successfully completed in order to pass the assignment.
The purpose of this section of the assignment is to give you the opportunity to explore some contemporary themes on leadership in organizations and through this be able to identify best practice that can be applied to a specific organization.
The purpose of this (smaller section) is for you to conduct an objective study of your own leadership skills and identify (with evidence) areas of strength and weakness. In order to do this you must consider you own ability to lead the changes that you recommend for the organization that you have written about.
The Task:
Section 1:
Produce a critical analysis of the leadership style adopted by an organization (probably your own) and benchmark it against best practice. Best practice in this case, is that identified within the academic research and literature. It should be about organizational and NOT personal leadership. You should NOT therefore write about the leadership styles and behaviour of individuals within your organization. You must write in detail and depth about the theory and its application.
Based on this benchmarking you should make recommendations for areas of improvement and effective implementation. You must make use of objective evidence to support you own opinion about the leadership of the organization. The ‘best practice’ theory must be based on academic research and not personal opinion.
Section 2:
You should produce an assessment of your own leadership. This is to be specifically related to your ability to take a leadership role in implementing the leadership changes that you have recommended in the first section of this assignment. Please note that this is about your abilities to take a lead role. Please bear in mind that this is an assessment of capabilities so you do not actually have to be in a leadership role to do this section. You should use objective evidence to help you to assess your own areas of strength and weakness. Objective evidence is typically a mixture of leadership self questionnaires and the opinions of those with whom you work. Your own personal opinion is permissible but any statements that you make must be supported with objective evidence.
Please not that this section is relatively brief and should take up no more than 1500 words of your assignment.
