Critically evaluate leadership in one organisation of your choice demonstrating how leadership led to a particular (singular) outcome. Ensure that you focus on one outcome (desirable or otherwise). As you are doing the analysis for a new CEO, assume that they are aware of important information about the company, and that therefore they do not require general background information. ONLY GIVE BACKGROUND INFORMATION THAT IS CLEARLY RELEVANT TO YOUR ANALYSIS. Using theory make reference to practical examples that highlight your analysis, and discuss practical areas of improvement where possible.
You are free to refer to organisations that are known to you through work experience however you need to make sure that you can provide the necessary relevant sources). This should be done through utilising the material discussed in the classroom sessions and your own reading on the topic. Whatever you choose to do must be fully explained and justified using appropriate academic underpinning.
Remember there is a difference between sources for information and sources for analysis. Sources for information are used for presenting facts or historical occurrences (e.g. an organisation’s first year of operations). You can use company websites, market research reports, interviews with managers and employees, personal work experience, newspapers, trade journals or industrial publications. Any other source for information is likely to be inappropriate. Sources for analysis are used for making or giving a judgement on information provided (e.g. defining an organisation’s structure or discussing the implications of that structure). You can use textbooks, academic journals or industrial journals. Any other source for analysis is likely to be inappropriate. Your analysis MUST make reference to material covered during the course as is appropriate.
The aim of the report is to critically evaluate leadership and identify how leadership led to a specific outcome in your chosen organisation. Below is a general guide of the content expected in the report. You do not have to lay it out as presented below, however if you have no idea how to present the report the general layout below would be appropriate.
Executive summary:
A summary of the entire report including the main points. This differs from the introduction in that the introduction explains what you plan to do, this explains what you have done. A useful indication of what goes where is to consider tense. Future tense is in the introduction (i.e. “The report aims to”), past tense goes in the executive summary (i.e. “The report has found”) as does present tense (i.e. “The report finds”).
Introduction:
An explanation of the aims of the report as well as an indication of the structure the report will take. Phrases such as “The report aims to...”, “It will do this by first...”, “It will evaluate/analyise/discuss...”, “It will conclude with...”, “It will finally....” will be appropriate here. Identify discourse to be used here.
Organisation summary:
Key points about the organisation along with an explanation of the outcome (note singular) suffered or enjoyed. This must be made clear and be explicit and succinct. The rest of your discussion will only make sense in light of this section.
Theme 1
Indication Explanation Application Implication Critique Response
Indication: Indicate what point you are going to make to your audience. This can be in full or in part. – e.g. “The aim of this chapter is to use a functional perspective to help explain why leadership led to the failure of Nike”, “In this section I will explore ethical issues at McDonalds and provide evidence that this had a significant impact on the organisations bankruptcy. To do this I will first explain what unethical behaviour is, then I will show the relationship between unethical behaviours and demotivated employees. Having done this, I will explain how demotivated employees can lead to a downturn in performance at organisations and ultimately bankruptcy.”, “Having shown the importance of employee motivation I will now demonstrate how it led to greater innovation at Apple.”
Explanation: Explain theory - e.g. what is organisational culture? (using appropriate sources of analysis).
Application: Apply theory to practical reality of organisation – e.g. How is culture enacted at Organisation A (generally this will be using appropriate sources of information).
Implication: What is the implication of what you have discussed so far, i.e. how does it lead to the outcomes of organisation A? – e.g. “Having a role culture leads to higher market share” (only using appropriate sources of analysis). Note that sometimes to get to the outcome, you may need to take a few steps e.g. Role culture leads to engaged employees (step 1) engaged employees leads to greater
