MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 1 Discussion
DQ1 In many organizations, being “people-centered” is considered soft, irrelevant, and unrelated to profitability. Contemplate the Conscious Capitalism principles (i.e. conscious leadership, stakeholder orientation, conscious culture, and higher purpose) as a framework and consider at least two companies that have successfully adopted this business philosophy to gain success and combat traditional corporate approaches. How do these companies embody the tenet of “higher purpose” and create deeper meaning by focusing their goals beyond profits and inspiring their stakeholders? What connections can you identify between the four principles of Conscious Capitalism and the Christian concept of putting others before oneself?
DQ2 Review the “Skills Exhibited by an Effective Manager” (Table 1-2 in Organizational Behavior). Identify your particular areas of strength and discuss opportunities for your own development as a manager.
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 2 Discussion
DQ1 Discuss the role that emotional intelligence (EI) plays in the self-leadership. Be sure to provide an analysis of all four dimensions of EI (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management) in your response.
DQ2 Refer to the results of your “Rokeach Values Survey” that you completed for this week’s assignment
http://www.wec.ufl.edu/faculty/jacobsons/wis6525/rokeach_value_survey%20personal%20responses.pdf
What are your major terminal and instrumental values? Which values, terminal or instrumental, are valid predictors of career success in the workplace? To what extent do you believe your personal values are aligned with the values of your organization?? What impact does this have on your sense of belongingness/fit with your organization?
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 3 Discussion
DQ1 What is the current design of your job? Assume that the opportunity arose for you to utilize the idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) in redesigning your job. What would you do to make your job inherently more motivating? How would you design the feedback and reward systems in the new job? Be sure to include comments on two content theories and two process theories and highlight the significance of each theory.
DQ2 Goal setting research suggests that people should be given difficult goals. Provide an explanation that reconciles this research finding with expectancy theory. Use a practical example (preferably work related) to illustrate this.
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 4 Discussion
DQ1 Refer to Figure 11-2 in the Organizational Behavior textbook. Which of the reasons for team failure have you experienced and how would you do things differently to ensure that any team you are involved in will be successful? Research the tenet of conscious culture and explain its role in promoting successful teams.
DQ2 Although virtual teams are becoming more prevalent, there have been mixed reviews on their effectiveness. Read “The Best Online Platforms for Virtual Meetings,” “5 Tips for Virtual Collaboration,” and “Yahoo Orders Homeworkers Back to the Office.” Discuss the steps you would take to manage a successful virtual team (be sure to discuss how you would choose a platform to use and guidelines for monitoring virtual team performance).
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 5 Discussion
DQ1 Many types of negotiations occur in business settings. This example is indicative of the ethical dilemmas inherent in many negotiations.
Assume for a moment that you are the owner and CEO of a small machine and tool company. You have 35 employees, most of whom are highly skilled machinists who belong to a local union. Generally, you are an open manager with an abiding sense of fair play and ethics. For this reason, you have been able to attract workers who are skilled and committed to the company’s long-term success. In fact, labor relations are calm – even harmonious. For example, contract violations are usually handled between you and shop stewards in a problem-solving context with an almost complete absence of acrimony or contentiousness. Now, however, you face a serious and unprecedented issue. Due to an economic downturn, business activity has taken a sharp decline with the expectation that things will get much worse. You have just met with your accountant who has informed you there is no other choice but to lay off people or reduce wages. Your initial meeting with the union representatives shocked you into reality because it was filled with divisiveness, arguing, name-calling, and even occasional profanity. Things turn much worse in the second meeting because the union lawyers are present. After reading the article “Ethics in Negotiation: Oil and Water or Good Lubrication,” you are stunned to discover that the deceptive tactics outlined in the article read like a primer for what the union is doing. Answer the following questions based on the case and the article:
What type of conflict is occurring in this case, and what conflict management style would you, as the manager use? Justify your choice.
What are the challenges to effective communication in this case and how can these challenges be mitigated?
How would evidence-based decision making help in resolving this case?
DQ2 Workers increasingly rely on means of technology-mediated communication in the workplace. Besides e-mail, workers commonly utilize tools, such as instant messaging and virtual meeting spaces, to regularly interact with coworkers and clients. How do you think such tools impact interpersonal dynamics in the workplace? What are the benefits and challenges of these tools? How might those challenges be overcome?
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 6 Discussion
DQ1 Conduct some web-based research into one organization that professes to have adopted a servant leadership philosophy (e.g., SWA, Men’s Warehouse, TDIndustries). What are the organization’s values? Compare these organizations to another in the same industry using major performance metrics (employee turnover, market share, profitability, etc.) and conclude whether or not you think having a servant leader philosophy makes a significant difference in company performance.
DQ2 Read the article, “Leaders, Too, Need Support.” How do you see yourself in the role of supportive follower? What power bases would a supportive follower be more likely to employ? What challenges do you have with this concept? What can you do to overcome those challenges?
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 7 Discussion
DQ1 One of your managers hears you have just completed your MBA. He looks at you and smirks and says, “All this emphasis on relationships is overrated. I have always made it clear to my subordinates what they need to do if they want to remain employed. All I have to say to them is ‘get it done and you will get rewarded, and if not, there will be consequences.’ It truly is that simple! Developing relationships with employees and suppliers or contractors, all that stuff is only good in the textbooks. It never delivers results.” Prepare a response to this manager and post it on the discussion board.
DQ2 Contrast the tradeoffs involved when an organization decides it is going to restructure. Be sure that you evaluate the critical organizational design variables that you would want to consider if you were heading up such a project. Next, evaluate the organizational chart for your current organization. Provide recommendations for revising the organizational design so it more effectively serves the mission of the firm and its many stakeholders.
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 8 Discussion
DQ1 Discuss the ethical implications of a leader’s role in the socialization of new hires into the preexisting culture of an organization. What responsibility does a company have to inform newly hired persons that it wants to shape their values, perceptions, and behavior to conform to the organization’s culture? What impact does socialization have on both individual and organizational effectiveness? Considering the concept of putting others before oneself from Topic 1, how could this same concept affect a company’s culture in regards to its organizational effectiveness?
DQ2 Contrast the corporate values espoused by two Fortune 500 companies. Select two firms that seem to manifest very different cultures. Your response should focus on the tradeoffs you would experience working in the two firms in terms of the values you bring to the workplace. How might your values fit in or clash with the culture of these two organizations?
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 2 Assignment
Self-Assessment and Reflection
This assignment focuses on the tenet of conscious leadership, the importance of self-assessment, and reflection. Self-awareness is essential for developing management and leadership skills. Recognizing your own strengths, weaknesses, and values, and understanding emotional intelligence and learning styles can help you to be a more effective leader. Becoming self-aware is an ongoing process requiring introspection. The more often people practice self-reflection, the more opportunities they have to understand their own behaviors and adapt their approaches to working with other people, which can improve both your own and other’s abilities to meet their professional goals.
Self-Assessment
For this assignment, you have the opportunity to take a variety of self-assessments to learn more about yourself and identify your assets and weaknesses as a leader. This will assist you in discovering how you can improve your own self-leadership skills. You will be asked to think critically about your results and submit a reflection as directed below. As a starting point, review the resources on conscious capitalism at: http://www.consciouscapitalism.org/. There are several helpful resources, including white papers and speech transcripts, available under the Content tab on the main page of this site. Conduct additional research beyond this website on the principle of conscious leadership.
Refer to the “Self-Assessment Links” resource in Topic Materials and complete each test. Be sure to document the results of each assessment to assist you in completing the reflection portion of the assignment below.
Self-Assessment Reflection
After completing the self-assessments, write a 1,000-1,250 word reflection in which you discuss the following:
Explain the characteristics of conscious leadership as defined by Mackey and Sisodia and compare them to the primary characteristics of two or three other leadership theories you have studied.
Describe the importance of self-awareness, self-concept, and emotional intelligence and the role they play in enabling effective conscious leadership.
Briefly summarize the results of each test you completed. In general, do you believe the results represent who you are as a leader? How will the results inspire you to be a conscious leader? Explain.
What insights have you gained about yourself after taking the assessments? How could this knowledge influence your values, attitude towards others, and how you approach new tasks in the workplace?
Explain the significance of the self-assessment results in relation to your individual behavior, your behavior within groups, and within organizations. What have you learned about your ability to manage others within the workplace? What have you learned about what it takes to manage yourself or how you respond to the management tactics of others within the workplace?
Include at least four academic references for this assignment to support your analysis and reflection.
This assignment uses a checklist. Please review the checklist prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.
MGT605 Leadership and Organizations
Week 3 Assignment
CLC – Leading Teams at West Coast Transit
This is a Collaborative Learning Community (CLC) assignment.
It is not unusual for organizations to have several people in leadership roles who participate in collaborative decision making for the benefit of the entire organization. Leading teams of diverse individuals is a significant challenge and negotiating individual strengths, weaknesses, and personalities can be difficult. Nonetheless, as managers it is your responsibility to effectively lead teams through establishing expectations designed to motivate individuals, fostering critical decision-making skills, and improving communication and collaboration among teammates. For the assignments in Topics 3 and 5, as part of the management team at a successful, regional airline, West Coast Transit, you have been directed to form a team for a high-stakes, high-pressure project. Together, the management team will come to a consensus and a recommendation will be delivered to the director.
In assigned teams, individuals should share their recommendations for a team of six people from the given teammate profiles. Once each individual has made a case, together, the CLC must negotiate and select a team that will eventually be presented to the director. Begin by reading “West Coast Transit Company Profile” and “West Coast Transit Team Member Profiles.” Based on your understanding of the company, the project, and the people involved propose your team selection. Your proposal should be accompanied by a 1,000-1,250 explanation that addresses the following:
Why did you team select the six team members? Why did you decide against the others?
Considering the diverse factors that may influence the behavior of the selected team members, what specific strategies will the management team use to motivate this particular team of individuals? Why do you think they will work? What motivational strategies does the management team think would be ineffective for this team? Why?
What particular challenges or conflicts can the management team anticipate this team facing? What strategies might you apply to manage this team’s potential conflicts? (You will learn more about conflict management in Topic 5. It is acceptable to make relevant speculations based on what you know about the team members and conflict management at this point. You will have the opportunity to solidify your conflict management strategies in your Topic 5.)
Finally, summarize management team’s vision for the success of this team. Based on what you have identified as the selected team’s particular strengths and weaknesses, which specific leadership strategies might you apply to ensure that the vision is ultimately successful? Why?
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a checklist. Please review the checklist prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.
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