Foundations of Leadership Assignment 1

Assignment Instructions

Choose a publicly traded organization. Research the leadership practices and style of a senior leader in the company. Write a leadership analysis that explores the leader’s function in the organization as well as his/her leadership style(s).

Assignment Length and Content

Your written assignment should be a minimum of 1,500 words in length and include the following information:

Company name, company function (product or service), leader name, title, etc.

A description of the chosen leader’s leadership style.

A summary of the primary role and responsibilities of the leader within the company.

A description of the functions of planning, organizing, commanding, staffing, and controlling in leadership. An analysis that explains whether the chosen leader does or does not aspire to be a leader within the chosen company. Provide supporting detail as to why or why not.

You should also address the following questions in the assignment:

Does the leadership practice place emphasis on requesting input from subordinates and/or peers prior to making major decisions?

What does a leader consider the most important part of his/her job and why? What is the most challenging part of the job and why?

How does the leadership style encourage innovation? If innovation is not encouraged, what is the reason behind it? How does a company leader communicate with and provide feedback to his/her subordinates? Does the leadership style consider communication and feedback as important and why?

What steps does the leaders of the company take to prevent harassment in the workplace and what steps do they take if a harassment complaint is brought to the company’s attention?

You may also include other supporting ideas, research, or answers to related questions.

Assignment Suggestions

Develop a list of questions to guide your research and response to each component of this assignment so that you can meet the criterion present in the rubric.

Select a company in which you have an invested interest, such as a corporation in which you are a stockholder.

Select a company that you frequent often, such as a bank, restaurant, or a select a company within an industry of choice.

Using Sources

You may refer to the course material for supporting evidence, but you must also use at least two credible, outside sources and cite them using APA format. Please include a mix of both primary and secondary sources, with at least one source from a scholarly peer-reviewed journal. If you use any Study.com lessons as sources, please also cite them in APA (including the lesson title and instructor’s name).

Primary sources are first-hand accounts such as interviews, advertisements, speeches, company documents, statements, and press releases published by the company in question.

Secondary sources come from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, such as the Journal of Management. You may use like JSTOR, Google Scholar, and Social Science Research Network to find articles from these journals. Secondary sources may also come from reputable websites with gov, edu, or .org in the domain. (Wikipedia is not a reputable source, though the sources listed in Wikipedia articles may be acceptable.)