Task

Drawing upon examples from management activities undertaken in the lectures and/ or your experiences of team working in organisations, critically address whether the comments made in the following quotation still have relevance in modern organisations:

"Leadership is different from management. Leadership isn't mystical and mysterious. It has nothing to do with having charisma or other exotic personality traits. Leadership is not necessarily better than management. 

Leadership & management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristic activities. Both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment ''

Note

Your work is to be presented in report format and should be approximately 3000-3500 words in length. Introduction, Main Section, Conclusions should all be clearly sub-titled

As well as using examples from your observations and experiences of seminar activities and/ or your work environment, you should also utilise appropriate theories, concepts and readings to underpin your discussion. 

Learning outcomes tested

• Understand the concept of leadership and management, and demonstrate sound knowledge and understanding of the concepts, theories and disciplines which underpin business and management and their selected sphere of study. For example, social systems and organisational culture; motivation and reward systems; Leadership; interpersonal behaviour; group behaviour, change management; and stress management. Engage in a systematic identification, analysis and evaluation of all the main variables in a wide range of relevant literature. Further, be able to integrate new knowledge with previous learning and experiences. (Knowledge Domain)

• Conduct research into subject specific leadership and management issues and gather and evaluate evidence/information from a range of sources. Produce a comprehensive, logical and tailored research methodological debate. Effectively undertake both primary and secondary research (Research Domain)

• Demonstrate cognitive skills of critical thinking, analysis and synthesis; and demonstrate the ability to analyse, synthesise and solve complex unstructured leadership and management problems in unpredictable contexts. Deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively, make sound judgements in the absence of complete data. Further, show high levels of personal judgement, interpretation and understanding – making explicit that there are elements of uncertainty and self regulation in critical thinking. (Critical Thinking Domain)

• Able to use established valid evidence to develop coherent, logical argument(s). There is consistent exposition of appropriate argumentation. Argument used as a tool to develop knowledge. The argument(s) constructed are fully persuasive exploring a wide range of complex leadership and management problems. The limitations of the argument will be clearly identified. The student will be able to offer well founded, cautious, personal interpretations - with original insights (Argument Development Domain)

• Demonstrate the ability to express complex and sophisticated ideas fluently and comprehensively at a high level. There is a high level of empathy with the intended audience. The communication style adopted complements argument development and critical thinking throughout. Able to communicate both orally and in writing, effectively and appropriately, using a range of formats and media. Communicate outcomes clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences. Further, able to effectively communicate results of leadership and management research to peers. (Communication Domain)