Leadership and Self Awareness
For a good overview of the foundational concepts of organizational development, read the following introductory book chapter. Pay special attention to the seven steps of action research, which will be a major emphasis for the Case Assignment:
Lurey-Griffin-Handbook for Strategic HRLurey, J. & Griffin, M. (2013). Section 2: Chapter 4: Action research: The anchor of OD practice. In Vogelsang, J. (ed). Handbook for Strategic HR: Best Practices in Organization Development from the OD Network. Saranac Lake, NY, USA: AMACOM Books, pp. 46-52. [EBSCO eBook Business Collection. Note: when looking up a book in the EBSCO book collections do not copy and paste the entire reference into the search engine. Only enter in the title of the book. If you do a search on “Handbook for Strategic HR: Best Practices in Organization Development from the OD Network.” this book will come up.
Now read up in more detail on action research with the following chapter. This chapter has more detail about the main steps of action research such as entry, contracting, etc. Note the names of the steps are a little different than the previous book chapter such as “action planning” instead of “planning change” or “research” instead of “data gathering and diagnosis”. But it is the same basic step-by-step approach:
Haneberg-Organization Development Basics
Haneberg, L. (2005). Chapter 3: The action research approach to change. Organization Development Basics. Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training & Development. [EBSCO eBook Business Collection]
Finally, review this more detailed chapter. Pay special attention to the section on action research as applied to organizational development which starts on page 20:
McLean-Organization Development
McLean, G. N. (2006). Chapter 1: What is organization development? Organization Development: Principles, Processes, Performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. [EBSCO eBook Business Collection.’
LEADERSHIP SELF-AWARENESS
Case Assignment
For this first Case Assignment, your task is to apply some of the leadership development tools that you read about in the background materials to your own personal development. As a warning, this assignment as well as several other assignments will involve taking a lot of surveys. Of course surveys are not the only tools used in leadership development, but they are one of the most popular tools and many leadership coaching companies charge a lot of money for the surveys that they’ve developed. Fortunately some of the surveys discussed in the background readings are available for free. The purpose of taking the quizzes are both for use in your leadership development, and also to get a taste of what various leadership coaches out there are doing and charging their clients for.
Make sure to thoroughly review the background readings before writing your paper. The main tasks in this assignment are A) read the background materials, B) take some self-assessment quizzes, and C) write up a self-development plan based on what you’ve read about in this module and your score on the quizzes. More specifically, write a four to five page paper addressing the following questions:
Take the Values in Action (VIA) Inventory of Strengths that was discussed in the background materials. This instrument is available for free but you need to register: https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register
If you can find a free variation of the Strengthsfinder survey online you take this one instead, but the “official” Strengthsfinder survey from Gallup is not free. Report and discuss your results. Were your results surprising or what you expected to find? [One half to one page in length]
Now take the Emotional Intelligence Self-Assessment in Chapter 3 of Sterret (2006) as well as the Leadership Assessment in this chapter. Discuss how you scored on each of the different elements of Emotional Intelligence as well as your Leadership Assessment. Report and discuss your results. Were your results surprising or what you expected to find? [One half to one page in length]
Now we get to the main heart of the assignment. Based on what you have learned in this module and the quizzes you took above, give some specific examples of how you will improve your leadership skills. Your examples should be based on both your results on the two quizzes, and from the required readings. Make sure to cite at least two of the required readings in your answers, and support your answers with specific results from the quizzes that you took. [One and a half to two pages]
Finally, discuss the main limitations of the quizzes you took and the concepts you read about for this module. What information is missing from the quizzes you took? What additional important aspects of leadership development are not covered in this material or quizzes? What else do you think you need to know about yourself in order to improve your leadership skills? [One page]
Assignment Expectations
Case Assignments are to be prepared in Microsoft Word 12-pt font, be at least 4 pages in length (excluding title and references pages) and include 3 scholarly sources from the required or optional readings list. For more information on Leadership and Self Awareness check out : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKBUS5JZN9c
