Purpose:

The purpose of this project is for you to research leadership challenges facing 21st century companies, identify issues related to the challenges, and create a skill set list needed to address the leadership challenges.

Skill Building:

You are also completing this project to help you develop the skills of research, critical thinking, writing and assessing leadership skills

Skills: Research, Writing, Critical Thinking, Leadership Skills

Outcomes Met With This Project:

Use leadership theories, assessment tools, and an understanding of the role of ethics, values, and attitudes to evaluate and enhance personal leadership skills

Assess the interactions between the external environment and the organization to foster responsible and effective leadership and organizational practices

Develop individual awareness, style, and communication skills that enhances leadership skills

Conduct research

Instructions:

Deloitte published survey results related to Global Human Capital Trends in 2014 that indicated a 21st century challenge for businesses is the need for leaders at all levels.

The demand for leaders at all levels has arisen due to gaps that stem from companies wanting to grow rapidly, older leaders retiring and a need for leadership that is broader and deeper than in the past (Deloitte, 2014). The need for leadership at all levels need to address:

Four specific leadership challenges are identified below:

Developing multiple generations;

Meeting the demand for leaders who possess global fluency and flexibility;

Leaders that build innovation, and;

Leaders who fuel new levels of understanding of rapidly changing technologies, new disciplines, and fields.

Step 1: Research

You are a Human Resource Talent Specialist and your boss, Natalie Woods, the Human Resource Talent Manager, has asked you to research two of the specific leadership challenges from the list of four (4) above, identify the leadership issues related to the challenges (not management issues), and create a skill set list to address the leadership challenges.

To help you with your research, Natalie has provided you with a Leadership Challenge Template that you will use to identify the different elements of the challenges.

Your research is crucial, as the two sets of skills identified will be the main topics the upcoming leadership training retreat sponsored by the Company. When the research is completed, you will write an email to Natalie with a copy to Walter Pidgeon, the Vice President of International Sales.

Step 2: Elements to Address in the Email

Using the information compiled in the Leadership Challenge Template:

Provide a brief introduction that identifies the purpose of the email that also identifies the two leadership challenges that you will discuss;

First Leadership Challenge:

For the first leadership challenge, identify and briefly discuss why the challenge is a leadership challenge. Use the course material and research to support the reasoning;

For the first leadership challenge, identify and discuss the leadership issues (not management issues) related to the leadership challenge. Use the course material and research to support the reasoning;

For the first leadership challenge, develop a skill set list and using the course material and the research, explain why these skills will address the leadership challenge. (See Dr. Kathy's Notes for guidelines on how to write these skills.)

Second Leadership Challenge:

For the second leadership challenge, identify and briefly discuss why the challenge is a leadership challenge. Use the course material and research to support the reasoning;

For the second leadership challenge, identify and discuss the leadership issues (not management issues) related to the leadership challenge. Use the course material and research to support the reasoning;

For the second leadership challenge, develop a skill set list and using the course material and the research, explain why these skills will address the leadership challenge. (See Dr. Kathy's Notes for guidelines on how to write these skills.)

Step 3: Email Set Up

Create a Word or Rich Text Format (RTF) document using 12-point font. An email is left justified with no indentations of paragraphs. Single space with double space between paragraphs to make the memorandum easy to read.

You will write an email addressed to Natalie Woods with a copy to Walter Pidgeon.

You will use the following email format:

To:

Cc:

Subject:

Note: You are not actually writing and sending an email so please do not create in an email system and copy into a file.

Step 4: Write the Email

Using the information compiled in Step 2, you will write the email. The following items are required in creating the email:

There are eight required sections of this email. See Dr. Kathy's Notes for more detail about these eight sections.

Third person writing is required. Third person means that there are no words such as "I, me, my, we, or us" (first person writing), nor is there use of "you or your" (second person writing).

Contractions are not used in business writing, so do not use them.

Use direct quotation marks for primary sources. For all other source material used in the analysis, you will not use direct quotation marks but will instead paraphrase.

What this means is that you will put the ideas of an author or article into your own words rather than lifting directly from a source document.

You may not use more than four consecutive words from a source document, as doing so would require direct quotation marks. Changing words from a passage does not exclude the passage from having quotation marks.

Use in-text citations and provide a reference list that contains the reference associated with each in-text citation.

You may not use books in completing this project.

Provide the page or paragraph number in every in-text citation presented.