led402 full course latest 2017

Module 1 - Case

LEADERSHIP SELF-AWARENESS

Case Assignment

For this first Case Assignment, your task is to apply some of the leadership development tools that you read about in the background materials to your own personal development. As a warning, this assignment as well as several other assignments will involve taking a lot of surveys. Of course surveys are not the only tools used in leadership development, but they are one of the most popular tools and many leadership coaching companies charge a lot of money for the surveys that they’ve developed. Fortunately some of the surveys discussed in the background readings are available for free. The purpose of taking the quizzes are both for use in your leadership development, and also to get a taste of what various leadership coaches out there are doing and charging their clients for.

Make sure to thoroughly review the background readings before writing your paper. The main tasks in this assignment are A) read the background materials, B) take some self-assessment quizzes, and C) write up a self-development plan based on what you’ve read about in this module and your score on the quizzes. More specifically, write a four to five page paper addressing the following questions:

Take the Values in Action (VIA) Inventory of Strengths that was discussed in the background materials. This instrument is available for free but you need to register: https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register

If you can find a free variation of the Strengthsfinder survey online you take this one instead, but the “official” Strengthsfinder survey from Gallup is not free. Report and discuss your results. Were your results surprising or what you expected to find? [One half to one page in length]

Now take the Emotional Intelligence Self-Assessment in Chapter 3 of Sterret (2006) as well as the Leadership Assessment in this chapter. Discuss how you scored on each of the different elements of Emotional Intelligence as well as your Leadership Assessment. Report and discuss your results. Were your results surprising or what you expected to find? [One half to one page in length]

Now we get to the main heart of the assignment. Based on what you have learned in this module and the quizzes you took above, give some specific examples of how you will improve your leadership skills. Your examples should be based on both your results on the two quizzes, and from the required readings. Make sure to cite at least two of the required readings in your answers, and support your answers with specific results from the quizzes that you took. [One and a half to two pages]

Finally, discuss the main limitations of the quizzes you took and the concepts you read about for this module. What information is missing from the quizzes you took? What additional important aspects of leadership development are not covered in this material or quizzes? What else do you think you need to know about yourself in order to improve your leadership skills? [One page]

Assignment Expectations

Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions

Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials

List supporting references and cite sources in proper format

Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).

Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations

Module 1 - SLP

LEADERSHIP SELF-AWARENESS

For the Session Long Projects you will also be applying the concepts from the background materials. But instead of applying them to yourself, you will imagine that you are a leadership development coach who is hired to by organizations to diagnosis or give advice to managers. For each of the situations below, explain what advice or diagnosis you would give them based on your knowledge of the background readings. Make sure to cite at least one of the required background readings in each of your answers. Your paper should be two to three pages in length:

Susan is a manager who decides to assess her strengths using some of the 24 classifications of the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths that you read about for this module. She discovers that two of her biggest strengths are “humor” and “teamwork.” She concludes that since these are her strengths she doesn’t need to change anything regarding her use of these strengths. Do you think this is a good use of her assessment, or should she make changes to her use of humor and teamwork? If so, what kind of changes?

Harold has an MBA from Harvard and is focused on becoming a CEO before he is 45 years old. He is very good at networking and often makes friends with those who rank higher than him at his current organization. However, employees under his supervision feel that he often makes decisions based on what will get him promoted rather than on what is best for his employees or his organization. How would you characterize his emotional intelligence (EQ) skills based on the different elements of EQ discussed in the background readings? Be specific regarding which elements of EQ you think he is likely high on or which elements you think he may be lacking.

Carl is known as a very caring manager based on his ability to understand his employee’s problems and taking careful to time to get to know each and every employee. He is personally well liked by all of his employees. However, the one complaint they do have about Carl is that he gets very upset when things don’t go well and takes things very personally. For example, when he found out that profitability for his unit had fallen over the last month he was so upset he had to take a couple of sick days off from work. How would you characterize his emotional intelligence (EQ) skills based on the different elements of EQ discussed in the background readings? Be specific regarding which elements of EQ you think he is likely high on or which elements you think he may be lacking.

SLP Assignment Expectations

Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions

Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials

List supporting references and cite sources in proper format

Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).

Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.

Module 2 - Case

LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION

Case Assignment

As with all of the assignments for this class, first make sure to thoroughly review the required background materials. Make sure you fully understand the concepts of the Johari Window as well as Transactional Analysis. You need to have a solid understanding of these important concepts in order to successfully complete this assignment.

We will once again be applying the concepts from this module to your own experiences as a way of finding potential ways to develop your leadership skills. For this assignment, choose a current or former supervisor or subordinate and think carefully about how the concepts from the Johari Window and Transactional Analysis applies to this current or previous supervisor/subordinate relationship. Think carefully about the flow of information and communication between the two of you, and also times when either of you behaved as “adults,” “parents,” or “children” in your dealings with each other. Don’t worry, this assignment will be purely between you and your instructor so feel free to be as honest and self-reflective as you can.

More specifically, write a 4- to 5-page paper answering the following questions below. Make sure to cite at least one of the required readings in each answer, and to cite at least three sources total from the background readings in your paper:

Using a Johari Window analysis, what do you think some of your supervisor’s or subordinate’s blind spots are? What do you think some of your potential blind spots might be?

Also using a Johari Window analysis, what kind of hidden spots did you keep between you and your supervisor or subordinate? Did you suspect your supervisor or subordinate of having hidden spots?

Based on your answers to Questions 1 and 2 above as well as the required readings, how might Johari Window analysis be used to improve this supervisor/subordinate relationship that you wrote about in the above two answers?

Using Transactional Analysis, give some specific examples of when you and your supervisor or subordinate acted like “parents,” “children,” or “adults.” And be honest—we all act like “children” sometimes in the workplace.

Based on your answer to Question 4 and the required readings, how do you think this supervisor/subordinate relationship might have been improved using Transactional Analysis?

Assignment Expectations

Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions

Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials

List supporting references and cite sources in proper format

Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).

Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations

Module 2 - SLP

LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION

For this assignment you will be applying the concepts of the Johari Window and Transactional Analysis to some specific scenarios that you might face if you were a leadership development coach. Of course make sure to thoroughly review the required readings before starting on this assignment.

For each of the scenarios below, use at least one reference from the required readings to answer the specific question. Your paper should be two to three pages in length:

An employee shows up late for work. The supervisor says “I’m really disappointed in you. This is the fifth time this month you’ve been late for work!” The employee responds “I’m tired of you singling me out! Bob, Carol, and Ted are also late for work sometimes but you never chew them out!” Based on Transactional Analysis, what roles are the supervisor and employee playing?

An employee receives a performance review from the supervisor. The supervisor points out several areas where the employee has performed well and where the employee’s performance needs to be improved. The employee responds, “Thank you so much for the feedback. How would you suggest I go about improving my performance?” Based on Transactional Analysis, what roles are the supervisor and employee playing?

A leadership development coach is brought into a company to try to improve communication between supervisors and subordinates. The coach asks everyone to write down areas where their supervisor or subordinate has a blind spot. Everyone writes down a lot of complaints about areas that they think their supervisor or subordinate is clueless about. The coach shares what everyone wrote with the whole group. A lot of finger-pointing and arguments ensue, with a lot of feelings hurt. What additional steps do you think the coach should have taken based on the Johari Window that might have improved the outcome?

SLP Assignment Expectations

Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions

Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials

List supporting references and cite sources in proper format

Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).

Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations

Module 3 - Case

360-DEGREE FEEDBACK

Case Assignment

Continuing on the themes of the Module 1 and 2 Case Assignments, for this module you will also be doing a self-assessment as well as applying the concepts from the module to your own organization. Make sure to thoroughly review the required background materials before starting this assignment, as you need to apply concepts from readings such as Carelli (2010) and Mukherjee (2014) as part of this assignment.

This assignment has five sections. For each section, the suggested length is one half to one full page, for a total length of four to five pages not including the title page and references. You should also make sure to cite Carelli (2010) and Mukherjee (2014) multiple times throughout the paper as well as any additional references that you find:

Most 360-degree surveys are not free and in fact are very expensive if you want to get a license to use them at your organization. However, there are a few free sample 360-degree surveys out there. Do a search on Google or other search engines using terms such as “free 360-degree feedback survey.” Find two or three free surveys and choose one of them that you think would be most applicable to your organization. Explain the reasoning for your choice, and try to use criteria from Carelli (2010) (such as her checklist on page 175) for selecting your survey.

Now take the survey that you chose in your answer to Question 2 above. Fill out the survey as a self-evaluation – that is, use the survey to evaluate your own leadership skills and other skills. Report the results of your survey. Do you think the survey was useful? What areas for improvement in your leadership skills did you find from using the survey?

As a next step, fill out the survey again but this time evaluate your current supervisor or a previous supervisor that you worked with. Report your results. Were the results fair to your supervisor? What are the main areas for improvement for your supervisor based on your results?

Now that you have taken the survey twice, what is your overall evaluation of the survey that you took? Did the survey ask the right questions necessary for you and your supervisor? Are there different or additional questions that you think should be added to this survey? Use the “Selecting a 360 System” on page 175 of Carelli (2010) as well as your own experiences filling out the survey to assess the usefulness of the survey that you took.

Finally, take a look at pages 153-155 of Carelli (2010) where she discusses pitfalls and potential biases of a 360-degree survey. Which pitfalls do you think would apply to your organization and the leaders you work with? How might you overcome these pitfalls if you were to lead a 360-degree survey process in your organization?

Assignment Expectations

Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions

Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials

List supporting references and cite sources in proper format

Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).

Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.

Module 3 - SLP

360-DEGREE FEEDBACK

For this assignment you will be applying the concepts from the background readings to some specific scenarios that you might face if you were a leadership development coach. Make sure to thoroughly review Carelli (2010) and Mukherjee (2014) before starting on this assignment.

For each of the scenarios below, put on your “coach” hat and use your knowledge of the background readings to diagnose what went wrong and what might be done to improve the situation. Use at least one reference from the required or optional background readings for each answer, and at least two total background readings. Your paper should be 2-3 pages in length.

An organization decides that they don’t want to spend the large amount of money to use a 360-degree survey from an established vendor and instead decides to develop their own survey. An employee in the human resource department is asked to create a list of 50 questions about different areas of leadership performance. Two of the senior managers look at the questions briefly and then send out the survey as part of a 360-degree process. Once the results come in, there is no rhyme or reason to the results. For example, one top performing leader in the organization gets perfect performance scores from some employees and very negative scores from other employees. Management is not sure if the results from the survey can be trusted or not.

A unit in one organization is having a lot of performance issues and senior management is not sure of the reasons for this. They don’t want to fire any employees but they do think some of the supervisors need to improve their leadership skills. The survey is sent to five employees, which includes two supervisors and three direct reports. They are told that the survey will be anonymous but the results of each survey will be shared with all five employees – only the names will be removed from each survey but they will all be able to see the evaluation scores on each question. When senior management sees the survey results, they find that all five employees received almost perfect scores and no useful information from the surveys can be found.

A software company is concerned that they are losing market share to their competitors and that their software is not as high in quality as it used to be. In an effort to improve their competitiveness, they decide to use a 360-degree survey process to identify areas for improvement in leadership skills among their top supervisors in their software design department. After searching through a few different 360-degree instruments offered by different vendors, they find a survey that focuses on communication and teamwork skills. The process seems to go very well as supervisors who score low on communication or teamwork agree to go through training to improve these skills. One year later the 360-degree process is repeated and most supervisors show greatly improved communication and teamwork skills. However, the quality of the company’s software does not seem to have improved at all in spite of the improvements in communication and teamwork.

SLP Assignment Expectations

Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions

Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials

List supporting references and cite sources in proper format

Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).

Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.

Module 4 - Case

ACTION LEARNING

Case Assignment

Before starting on this assignment make sure to go through the background materials carefully and go through the main textbook readings. Also, reflect carefully upon your Module 1-3 Case Assignments and think about some major areas that you would like to improve upon for your own leadership development based on the self-assessments you have done so far in this class.

Once you have reviewed the background materials and gained a solid understanding about the main steps and challenges of action learning, write a 4- to 5-page paper addressing the following questions:

Since this is your last Case Assignment for the class, start out this assignment by reflecting on what you have found in your Module 1-3 Case Assignments. Based on your prior assignments and what you have learned so far, what do you think are some of the main areas you and/or some of the coworkers that you have written about should try to improve upon?

Now turn to Chapter 1 of Pedler and Abbot (2013) and pages 41-42 of Passmore (2011) where the potential benefits of action learning is discussed. Based on your answer to Question 1 above and from these two readings, what would you hope to improve upon using an action learning program? Do you think action learning would help you improve in these areas? Explain your reasoning both with respect to the readings and the areas for improvement in your leadership that you have identified so far in this class.

Go to the “Organizational Readiness for Action Learning” quiz on pages 43-44 of Pedler and Abbot (2013). Fill it out and report your results. Overall what does the quiz say about your organization’s readiness to engage in an action learning program? Do you agree with the results? What kind of challenges do you think you would face in setting up an action learning program at your organization?

Finally, take a look at pages 37-38 of Passmore (2011) and Chapter 8 of Marquardt (2004), which give step-by-step guidelines on setting up an action learning program. Based on your answers to Questions 1-3, how would you design an action learning program in your workplace? Include in your answer what kind of problem your set would work on, who you would include in your set, how often you think the group should meet, and other relevant steps outlined in the required readings. Explain the reasoning for your choices and what kind of outcomes you would hope to get out of this experience.

Assignment Expectations

Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions

Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials

List supporting references and cite sources in proper format

Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).

Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.

Module 4 - SLP

ACTION LEARNING

For this assignment, pretend that you are a leadership development coach assigned to help some organizations fix their action learning programs. For each of the scenarios below, explain what you think went wrong and how it could be fixed based on what you have learned about action learning in the background readings. For each of the three scenarios, explain your diagnosis and use at least one citation from the required readings to support your diagnosis. Your paper should be two to three pages in length:

A group of 20 from different departments from within an organization is put together to form an action learning set. At their meetings, every person is allowed to present and receive feedback from other set members and their coach. At first they are allowed to present and receive feedback for a half hour each but group members become exhausted from 10 hour meetings. Then this time is cut to 5 minutes per person but group members feel they are unable to learn or get adequate feedback from their coach and other group members in this amount of time.

A CEO picks an important problem for an action learning group consisting of five senior managers. The group meets every month for a full day for nine months. After nine months, each group member feels that they have learned a lot from receiving feedback every month and has improved several areas of their leadership skills. The group presents to the CEO a detailed plan along with steps they have already taken to help solve the problem and the results they have seen. But the CEO is upset because they didn’t come up with the solution the wanted and orders the group out of his office.

A group of several managers is put together to form an action learning set. The group members are very motivated to start this program and excited about the possibilities for developing their skills. The facilitator for the action learning program is a top assistant to the CEO. During group meetings, team members are reluctant to discuss difficulties they are facing in their tasks. Whenever a team member gives a presentation, they tend to only discuss positive experiences and they never criticize the organization.

SLP Assignment Expectations

Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions

Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials

List supporting references and cite sources in proper format

Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).

Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.

Module 1 discussion

Most Entertaining Emotional Intelligence Story

For the Cases and SLPs you will be doing a lot of reading, filling out surveys, and writing. But for the discussion forums try to have some fun and get to know your classmates.

For this discussion, think of an entertaining story of a supervisor or coworker that was very difficult to work with and caused you a lot of difficulty. Choose an incident that you think would be the most entertaining to your classmates. But in addition to being entertaining, also include some diagnosis of your coworker or supervisor’s Emotional Intelligence. What aspect of Emotional Intelligence do you think this person lacked the most? How did this shortcoming lead to the difficulties you faced with this person? Is there anything you could learn from this experience that might help you improve your own Emotional Intelligence?

Module 2 discussion

Extreme "Child" or "Blind Spot" Experiences

While reading up on the Johari Window and Transactional Analysis, think about some extreme experiences in your own workplace that applies to one or both of these concepts. In terms of the Johari Window, think about an extreme case of a large “blind spot” that you noticed in a coworker who was clueless about many of their weaknesses or actions that annoyed other workers. In terms of Transactional Analysis, think about extreme “child” behavior that you have seen in a coworker.

You don’t need to discuss both the Johari Window and Transactional Analysis in your post, just choose one or the other based on an extreme case that you have experienced. As with the Module 1 Discussion, choose an experience that you think would be the most entertaining to your classmates. And make sure to explain how the concept of either the Johari Window “blind area” or the Transactional Analysis “child” role applies to the experience you are discussing.

Module 3 discussion

360-Degree Survey Vendors

While searching for free 360-degree surveys, you probably came across quite a few webpages for vendors who will charge a lot of money to use their surveys. Take a look at the webpages or YouTube videos for some vendors, and choose one that sticks out to you the most. This could be a vendor that inspires a lot of confidence, or a vendor that does not seem to be reliable at all based on their promotional materials. Share the link with your classmates and explain what makes this vendor stand out.

Also, if you have been a part of a 360-degree process before, discuss your experiences with your classmates. What went well and what went wrong in this process? What concepts from the background readings were applicable to your own experiences?

Module 4 discussion

Action Learning Gurus

In the background materials you viewed two short animated videos that helped introduce you to the basics of action learning. For this discussion take a look at some more “serious” videos from some of the leading authorities on action learning.

Reg Revans is one of the early founders of action learning and his videos tend to be extremely serious in tone. Several of his classic videos are available on YouTube. More recent videos are also available by Michael Marquardt, another leading authority on action learning and author of one of the required background readings. Take a look at some videos from both of these action learning experts and share the links to couple videos that you found the most interesting or at least kept you awake.

What are your overall impressions of Drs. Marquardt and Revans? Which one seemed to be more authoritative or better at explaining the concepts? Anything useful in the presentations that helped you learn or absorb the concepts covered in the required background materials? Or did you just have trouble staying awake? Let your classmates know what your recommendations are regarding these videos.

Module 4 reflective discussion

Self-Reflection

You have already done a lot of self-reflection as part of your assignments this session, but now it is time to “reflect on your reflections.” Now that the class is almost over, carefully consider the following issues:

What concepts from the class do you think were most useful to your own leadership development goals?

After this class what steps are you planning to take to further develop your leadership skills? Any additional concepts you plan on reading up on, or any steps at your current job that you might take?