Project: Leadership Critique

This third unit offers one assessment - a ‘Project', which is to be submitted by the end of the unit. This is worth 30% of the overall module grade.

In many cultures, the notion of criticism or critique can have negative implications. The process of critical evaluation, or taking a critical stance on an issue, does not necessarily mean that you are finding fault with certain ideas or perspectives. It does not mean that you are choosing your favorite idea or adopting the perspective that is most familiar or comfortable to you. Rather, critical evaluation implies that you are thinking clearly and carefully about all of the benefits and limitations of a particular idea, such as a theory found in the literature. Critical evaluation may involve comparing or contrasting the best features of several theories or perspectives found in scholarly literature, and drawing a final, reasoned conclusion about what you believe. A good leader will stay abreast of current thinking found in journals, critically evaluate ideas gained from reading and research, draw some conclusions, but be ready at any time to adjust those conclusions if better ways of thinking about leadership present themselves.

You have completed two activities in this module on finding and summarizing resources on leadership and connecting leadership concepts to your own experiences. This Project will be your first opportunity in your programme to demonstrate critical thinking and academic writing on leadership concepts.

Word count: the suggested word count for this assignment is 2000 words.

Advice on word count: Submissions that range from 10% below to 10% above the recommended word count are acceptable. Students should recognise that assignment submissions that fall outside these parameters may be marked down. This restriction encourages the development of a concise writing style, as assignment quality is likely to suffer given the potential for overly verbose submissions. The policy is available to review on page 16 of the University of Roehampton Online Policies document, which can be found here.

To complete your Project:

Use the following general outline for your Leadership Critique:

Introduction
A description of transactional and transformational leadership theories based upon relevant academic research/literature. Refer to your required readings for a pool of resources that you can use.

Compare and contrast between the two theories and how they are related to each other.

A discussion of how these leadership theories, concepts or models relate to your personal perspectives on leadership: in other words, whether you find them useful to explain your understanding of and experiences with leadership or whether they seem to conflict with your understanding and experiences, and how. Refer to specific examples of transactional and transformational leaders that you came across or give personal examples of being a transformational or transactional leader.

Introduce the concept of servant leadership and how it relates to transformational and transactional leadership. After your critical evaluation, which type of leadership you believe is best and why?

Conclusion

References/Works Cited
In many cases, different authors use the same terms to describe different concepts or use different terms to mean what are essentially very similar ideas. Do not let terminology worry you; discuss your chosen concepts or theories in specific, descriptive language, without too much jargon. Good academic writing is clear and explanatory, not dense or obfuscatory (and, hopefully, does not include words such as obfuscatory!).

This Project submission accounts for 30% of your grade for this module. Review the Project Rubric for information on how your assignment will be graded.