Contemporary Leadership and Management Report

Section 1: Critically evaluating contemporary definitions, perspectives, and roles of leadership and management

You are required to write and submit a 3,500 word report demonstrating your understanding of contemporary leadership and management.  The report is divided into three sections, which reflect the learning outcomes of the module, each section is highlighted below:

Critically evaluate the contemporary definitions of leadership and management, consider current perspectives of the roles and responsibilities of both leaders and managers generally. 

1.Definitions of leadership and management

2.Similarities and differences between leadership and management (referring to academic and professional sources)

3.Current perspectives on the roles and responsibilities of leaders and managers generally (referring to academic and professional sources)

4.Similarities and differences you can see among the different views.

5.Use what you have found out to give a justified conclusion on the most important aspects of the roles and responsibilities of leaders and managers in modern organisations.

Fortune recently published their ‘2019 Greatest Leaders List’, the top ten of which you can find below.  Using examples of three leaders from this list assess and critically compare what makes these leaders distinctly successful.  Make use of different theoretical approaches to leadership and management to underpin this discussion. (Approximately 1000 - 1200 words.)

1.Introduce the 3 leaders.

2.Compare:

a.What type of leadership they show (back up with references showing where you got the information about the person, AND references showing where you got the information about the leadership style)

b.What makes them successful (position, power, knowledge, etc).  Justify what you are saying by giving examples of what they have done or what others have said about them (with references).  Also refer to academic theories and professional writings that explain what makes leaders successful.

c.Why people follow them (fear, hope, etc).  Justify what you are saying by giving examples of what they have done or what others have said about them (with references).  Also refer to academic theories and professional writings that explain what makes people follow a leader.  

d.Brief conclusion giving the most important things you found out.

3.Higher grades will be awarded to students who provide a convincing justification in defence of their claim.

Based on your evaluation (task 1) and critical comparison of three key contemporary leaders (task 2) analyse the critical skills and behaviours of a successful leader.  Then consider specific methods of leadership and management development that would develop at least two of these areas, proposing how to implement and evaluate these interventions effectively.  (Approximately 700 - 1000 words.)

1.Propose at least 3-4 skills and behaviours that are really important for a leader to have if they are going to be successful.  (These should emerge from the conclusions drawn from the previous two tasks.)  Justify your claim that these are important by backing up what you say with references from academic theory and professional writing.)

2.Propose a specific development intervention which would be appropriate for developing two (in total) of the previously posed skills and behaviours.  Justify your claim that this is an appropriate method by backing up what you say with references from academic theory and professional writing.)

3.Explain (using appropriate research to back up what you are saying) how the intervention would be implemented and how to measure its impact (how successful it was in developing the skill or behaviour.)