M134LON Management and cross-cultural leadership
Assignment Brief and guidelines
Assignment type and Weighting
Essay (100%)
Anonymous marking No
Expected return of feedback and marked work Two weeks from the submission deadline
Assessment is made up of multiple submissions No
Submission
Procedure Electronically via AULA (Turnitin) ONLY Word Count 3000 words
Assignment Title
Strategic leadership challenge in a cross-cultural business environment
Assessment Learning Outcomes
This assignment is designed to assess the following learning outcomes:
1: Demonstrate a critical awareness of current problems or new insights in complex situations and the ability to exercise significant responsibility and decision-making in organisations.
2: Develop effective interpersonal and communication skills that will enable them to work with multiple teams and lead complex tasks or processes.
3: Cultivate a sense of self-awareness through effectively developing a leadership vision, mission, style and values.
4: Exhibit extensive, detailed and critical knowledge and understanding of diversity around identities, cultures, and society.
5: Develop a range of leadership skills and abilities including effectively leading change, resolving conflict, and motivating others.
6: Identify, critically evaluate and maintain capabilities and qualities to support ethical relationships between leaders and followers in a range of complex and specialised contexts.
The CMI Learning Outcomes assessed in this module include:
CMI LO 1: Understand the role and context for strategic leadership
CMI LO 2: Understand the behaviours and skills for strategic leadership
Details of the task
You are required to produce an essay of 3000 words covering one of the scenarios below. This essay is intended to develop your skills in thinking critically and strategically on a leadership problem, in the context of international organisations.
Scenario A
Choose a company of your choice (this could be from any country in the world) and identify a leadership issue that the company is facing: For Example:
1. Failure to Communicate. The complexity of today’s business world requires CEOs to be able to communicate on multiple levels. …
2. Lack of Accountability. …
3. Fear of Firing. …
4. Lack of Alignment. …
5. Lack of Clear Vision. …
6. Poor Execution. …
7. A Company Culture by default.
Provide your own critical and strategic thinking on how you would resolve that problem. This should include the following:
– Discussion on the behaviours and skills you would need for strategic leadership
– Discussion on the ethical concerns you would consider in line with solving that particular problem
– Determine if there is any different approach between cultures on that specific problem
– Explanation on how you would work better as part of a team in solving the specific problem
– Identification of any action plan or leadership programme that you want to suggest in your company.
Scenario B
Hypothetical Scenario for students with less working experience:
Imagine that you are a team leader in a very conservative/traditional organisation that is resistant to change and new types of leadership.
For example, this could be a family run business, a business working in an industry using outdated technology, or a company on the brink of collapse.
Your task is to convince senior management of the need for change and to argue for one of the following solutions:
a) A Leadership programme
b) A diversity programme to widen participation in decision-making within your business, including but not limited to women and local talent
Provide your own critical thinking/point of view on how you would resolve that problem. This should include the following:
– Discussion on the behaviours and skills you would need for strategic leadership
– Discussion on the ethical concerns you would consider in line with solving that particular problem
– Determine if there is any different approach between cultures on that specific problem
– Explanation on how you would work better as part of a team in solving the specific problem
– Identification of any action plan or leadership programme that you want to suggest in your company.
To produce this essay you are expected to engage in researching the area in depth using the university electronic resources and other relevant sources to contextualise the leadership contingencies and forming an integrated perspective on the leadership challenge in business management. Therefore providing evidence and supporting your argument with research and literature is paramount.
Other information Your research
Make sure you cite and reference all your sources of research using the APA referencing system
Use at least 7 different sources of information in your research (Articles, journals, books, peer-reviewed academic papers)
You should be using sources from your textbook and the e-library and/or other relevant information sources such as Talis resource list where you will find various articles and books in your recommended reading list
Please do not use any non-credible sources in your research such as websites or non-academic sources.
Assignment Guidelines
Structure
You have been asked to produce an essay. This should contain the following:
Non-anonymous word coversheet (as attached in your assessment section)
Title Page, including your module title, code and assessment name
Table of Content Page (ensure this is done correctly and formatted professionally)
Introduction (introduce your topic, what is leadership and how different it is from management and why an effective leadership is paramount to the success of an organisation)
Overview of the company chosen (introduce the company briefly in about 15 lines: the industry it operates in, country, products or services, number of staff etc.)
Introduce the leadership issue or problem the organisation is facing
Discuss the behaviours and skills you will require for strategic leadership to solve that issue (you can draw upon trait theory, behavioural theory, transformational, transactional leadership theories and different leadership styles, concepts on leadership in crisis times)
Identify how ethical you can be on that particular issue (you draw upon ethical leadership, servant leadership and other contemporary leadership theories here)
Discuss any different approaches in other cultures in dealing with that specific issue (you can use BMI model, cross-cultural leadership models, such Hofstede, Trompenaars, and Globe research to support your views)
Explain how you would work better with different teams in the organisation to solve the issue (you can draw upon leadership in project management skills, leadership communication skills, team and shared leadership theories)
Identify any action plan or leadership programme that you want to suggest to your company (in this section you can make leadership recommendations for your organisation)
Conclusion (conclude your thoughts and ideas here)
Reference list (list all your references- it should be APA style, and ensure that you have cited all these references in the body of your essay).
