Length: 2000 words +/- 10% (excluding title page, references, and appendices only)

Weighting: 30%

Reference style: CQU American Psychological Association (APA)

Aims:

This assessment item aims to develop the following learning outcomes as stated in the course profile. The ability to:

1. Recognise the contribution made by leaders in different organisational settings, and to understand the characteristics of successful leaders.
2. Understand the principles underlying leadership development and good governance.
5. Discuss the role of leadership in ensuring the good governance of organisations.
6. Discuss different theoretical approaches and models in the study of leadership and governance.

Purpose:

The purpose of this assessment item is to increase your awareness of your self as a leader through reflective practice and the stimulus of a case scenario. It provides you with the opportunity to practice and improve skills related to research, analysis, critical thinking, problem solving, and academic writing. You are expected to analyse yourself as a leader and reflect on the problem presented in the case study by using, and correctly citing, a range of relevant scholarly literature. This literature must be used to justify and support your reflection on your leadership practice. In
doing so you are expected to use appropriate conventions of reflective essay writing: structure, language, length and tone.
You’ll also be expected to appropriately use the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing system which will be quite new to many of you.

Details:

Assessment Item 1 requires the writing of a reflective essay (2000 words +/- 10%, excluding the title page, reference list and appendices). The assignment should contain a coherent, but necessarily restricted review of the academic literature on leadership topics in question. The literature review should be integrated into the assignment and not be a separate section. A reference list formatted in the prescribed APA style is compulsory. Further information regarding formatting of assignments and other information is available at https://www.cqu.edu.au/student-life/services-and-facilities/referencing/cquniversity-referencing-guides

This assessment item requires you to research to enhance your understanding of and utilisation of academic literature. Whilst you should AVOID using only the textbook for the course (Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development, by Lussier & Achua, 2016), it should be cited in regard to broad leadership principles. You will be expected to present information and evidence from, and cite, at least ten scholarly sources that includes four peer reviewed journal articles (absolute minimum requirement). Although these may include other academic sources such as books on specific leadership topics, chapters of edited books and so on, it is highly recommended that you
use peer-reviewed journal articles. The quality and number of citations will demonstrate the breadth and depth of the literature used to support your arguments. Your marker is interested in the analysis that you developed from YOUR review of the literature and how well you use the literature to discuss the topic.

A good guide would be to use some recent references (ideally some of these would be journal articles from 2010-2015) in your discussions. The reference lists found in your prescribed textbook, as well as other texts, are good places to start when searching for relevant journal articles. Reliance on websites or textbooks only is NOT an appropriate academic literature search and will not help you to achieve higher marks and/or grades in this course. What is required in this assessment is a critical evaluation of the academic literature as it relates to the specific details of leadership practice.

Task:

The assessment item is based on the case study titled “Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting” (the case in available on Moodle). You should carefully read the case and imagine yourself in Chris Peterson’s position. At the end of the case Chris is asked “if she was prepared to lead the group in a new direction or if she would be more comfortable and successful returning to the IT practice as a functional specialist?” Your task is to reflect upon what your knowledge of yourself as a leader indicates you would do next if you were Chris Peterson.

During the Saturday workshop/s covering Topics 1, 2, 3, & 4, diagnostic tools and reflection activities will be undertaken to enable you to understand your self-confidence and emotional self-awareness as a leader through accurate self-assessment. Your task is to use the results of four of these tests to reflect on the decision that you will make as Chris Peterson. The results of the workshop diagnostic tools and reflection activities must be included in the appendix of the essay.

For example, you might choose to use the results of the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire from Topic 1; the Managerial Leadership Skills self-assessment from Topic 2; the Job Motivators and Maintenance Factors self-assessment from Topic 3; and the Leadership Style Your Fiedler LPC from Topic 4 to learn more about yourself and what you would do next in Chris’s position.

This is an example only the diagnostic tools and reflection activities that you use are your choice.
The marker will be interested not so much in which you choose but in your understanding of the concepts tested and what your results mean for your leadership practice.

Reflection is all about deepening your learning. By reflecting, you are able to:

• get to know your own strengths and weaknesses,
• discover your own underlying assumptions – and challenge them,
• make connections between your own experience and what you are learning learn from your mistakes – and thus become a better practitioner.

To learn more about reflective writing read the ‘Reflective Writing’ document available on the Moodle website.