Leading and Managing People/PMAN102/Assessment
Part A: Leading versus managing essay (50 marks, 50%)
The purpose of this part of your final assessment is to analyse the roles of managers and leaders in organizations, drawing on management and leadership theory.
First, you are required to identify:
- A person you believe is a good manager (Person A)
- A person you believe is a good leader (Person B) - see for example, the roles of managers and leaders activity.
You can choose a well-known manager or leader from any published corporate literature, or someone from your personal experience who may not be famous at all. If you choose to select an individual from your personal experience for this essay, you must respect the privacy of the individual and the respective corporation by referring to all identifying information in general terms, for example: the "Director of marketing at a medium-sized retail store." However, if you select a well-known leader from the published literature, you may mention the name and affiliation, for example: "Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group."
In an essay (1250 words maximum), write an analysis about the key characteristics, differences and similarities of the two roles of manager and leader. Your essay analysis should contain the following:
- A title page with important identifying details such as specific essay title, course name, date, your full name etc.
- An introduction that outlines the purpose and objectives of the essay.
- A paragraph that defines management and leadership and summarises the key differences and similarities between the roles of a good manager and leader.
- A detailed presentation of each person you have chosen and an explanation of why you believe the individual fits the good leader or good manager role.
- Linkages between your chosen individuals' characteristics and accompanying tasks/actions and published literature to support why you believe each is either a good leader or a good manager.
- An examination, with citations from published literature to back up your points, of the overlap between leadership and management. A possible discussion may include thoughts on how good managers need leadership skills and visa versa.
- A conclusion
- A bibliography
When preparing the essay, you must consult and cite at least five (5) sources such as relevant books, book chapters, or journal articles. These books and journal articles may be sourced online. Remember to look at the ANU e-Press, of Open Access Journals or the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine when researching your assignment. (For information on finding open access resources, you can consult the OERu course, Digital literacies for online learning.)
Part B: The happy workforce learning challenge (25 marks, 25%)
The purpose of this part of the assessment is to provide evidence on the importance of motivation in leadership and management by reflecting on workplace performance appraisals. Part B is based on "The happy workforce learning challenge". You are free to adapt and improve your original course learning challenge answer for submission with the rest of this final assessment. For the purposes of this final assessment, you are not required to publish a blog post but you should include the text of your answer in the assessment submission.
Your answer for Part B of this assessment should be about 600 words maximum.
Instructions
- Complete The happy workforce learning challenge:
- Learning challenge summary
- Learning challenge tasks
- Learning challenge outputs for submission, specifically:
- Why do you think performance reviews are stressful for both manager and employee?
- As an employee, what do you look for in a performance review?
- As a manager, what should you try to communicate to your employee in a performance review?
- Justify your responses drawing on needs-based and processed-based theories of motivation.
- In addition, conclude your answers with a concise paragraph on the implications of your findings and reflections for leadership and management.
- Include a bibliography.
Part C: Conflict resolution learning challenge (25 marks, 25%)
The purpose of this part of the assessment is to demonstrate your knowledge of ways to reduce or manage conflict in the workplace.
This assessment is based on the "Conflict resolution learning challenge. You are free to adapt and improve your original answer from your course learning challenge for submission. For the purposes of this assessment, you are not required to publish a blog post but you should include the text of your answer in your assessment submission.
Your answer should be about 600 words maximum.
Instructions
- Complete the Conflict resolution learning challenge:
- Learning challenge summary
- Learning challenge tasks
- Learning challenge outputs for submission, specifically:
- Give an example of a conflict you are personally aware of (please do not divulge names and other identifying information in order to respect privacy of individuals and organisations). Alternatively search for "examples of conflicts in the work place" and share a suitable example.
- Comment on whether the conflict resolved in one of the ways described in the reading. If you shared a conflict you read about on the internet, recommend an appropriate resolution approach to the conflict identified.
- What is your dominant personal conflict-handling style? List the advantages and disadvantages of that style in the context of your shared example.
- Based on your experience, how can conflict be positive?
- In addition, conclude your answers with a concise paragraph on the implications of your findings for leadership and management.
Submission: Submit all saved parts of this assessment for grading as instructed by your conferring institution.
NOTE: Once you have submitted your PMAN 102 assessment for grading, consider starting on PMAN 103 (if you have not done so already). Remember PMAN 101, PMAN 102 and PMAN 103 together cover a first year university level Principles of Management course of study.
