Assessment Task Brief 1 – Essay #1
| Module Title: | Leadership in Contemporary Organisations |
| Assessment Title: | Leadership essay |
| Individual/Group: | Individual |
| Weighting: | 100% |
| Submission Date: | See Assessment Diary and Blackboard site for details |
Task details & particular instructions to students
Title: “Based on your study of leadership theory, discuss and justify the leader you aspire to become.”
As you develop your personal leadership model (or ‘cocktail’) you are required to include the following:
- A minimum of three different elements.
- Consideration of how you will involve your followers in the leadership process.
- Demonstration of self-awareness as to your current leadership capabilities in light of points 1&2.
- Consideration of your key development priorities and how you can progress these.
Further guidance and the chance to ask questions will be given in seminars.
| Word length and penalty: | The essay should be 4000 words in length. This word limit relates to the word count given by the word counters in Microsoft Word and should be included at the end of the document. For work that is >10% over the word limit, a sanction will be applied in that markers will stop reading after the word limit has been exhausted and will only mark content up to this point e.g. will discount the conclusion so this could be costly and is best to be avoided at all costs.
Note the following as to what is to be included or not in the word count: (a) appendices should not be included in word count (b) tables should not be included in word count if these are used to present quantitative data or taken from a reference, but should be included if they are constructed using your own words (c) quotations and citations should be included in word count (d) the bibliography should not be included in the word count. (e) the title page.
Thus, from ‘Introduction’ through to the end of the ‘Conclusion’ is to be included.
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| Style: | Essay / prose style (but you can use headings, appendices and figures as appropriate).
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Key Texts
- Northouse, P. (2018) Leadership: theory and practice. (8th ed). Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications. (7th edition is also fine to use). [The text with the most coverage in and lots of PDP tools etc.]
- Schedlitzki, D. and Edwards, G. (2018) Studying Leadership: Traditional and Critical Approaches. (2nd). London: Sage Publications Limited. [A good newer take on leadership texts and it has some excellent chapters on and is quite in line with the thinking of the module creators.]
- Jackson, B. and Parry, K. (2018) A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying leadership. (3rd). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. [2014 available in e-book format. A nice small cheap book that is nicely written and full of interesting stuff BUT is not a full text book as it lacks diagrams etc.]
Assessment criteria matrix
Note: The marking matrix provides guidance in terms of the assessment criteria for the module. The tutors also take a holistic view of the assessment process and award additional marks where the work demonstrates originality, creative thinking and deep personal learning.
| Criteria and Weighting
|
< 40% | 40 – 49% | 50 – 59% | 60 – 69% | > 70%
|
| Evaluation and discussion
= 35% Weighting |
Little or no exploration, discussion, evaluation or analysis. Very descriptive and basic in style.
May also lack sufficient focus on the question. |
Evaluation mainly descriptive with limited exploration, discussion, evaluation or analysis.
Likely to demonstrate some but limited focus on the question.
|
Reasonable exploration, discussion, evaluation and analysis. May be quite descriptive in places.
Likely to demonstrate reasonable focus on the question. |
Evaluation demonstrating a good level of exploration, discussion, evaluation and analysis with minimal descriptive elements. Some criticality and justification of argument present.
Likely to demonstrate good focus overall.
|
Very good level of exploration, discussion, evaluation and analysis. Good level of criticality and justification of argument present.
Likely to be very focussed on the question.
|
| Coverage of theories, models and concepts
= 30% Weighting
|
No or minimal coverage of relevant theory, models and concepts. | Limited coverage of relevant theory, models and concepts. | Reasonable coverage of relevant theory, models and concepts. | Good coverage of relevant theory, models and concepts. | Very good coverage of relevant theory, models and concepts.
|
| Criteria and Weighting
|
< 40% | 40 – 49% | 50 – 59% | 60 – 69% | > 70%
|
|
| Use of sources | Range of sources utilised to support the discussion
= 10% Weighting |
None or very limited sources used. Shows little evidence of research and reading and little engagement with the extensive module reading list material. | Limited sources used. Some but limited engagement with the module reading list material. | Reasonable range of sources used. Some evidence of research and reading based on the module reading list and / or self-sourced. | Good range of sources used based on the module reading list materials, own research and reading (i.e. some wider reading). | Very good range of sources used including good use of the module reading lists and own research and reading (i.e. wider reading). This may inform some advanced or unexpected insights. |
| Quality of sources utilised to support the discussion
= 10% Weighting |
Sources draw from non-academic web sites and blogs and limited generic text books. | More reliant on web sources and key texts books with little use of dedicated text books or journal articles. | Relies on text books with some engagement with key journal articles. Less reliance on web sources overall. | Mostly good quality sources used e.g. leadership text books and journal articles. Minimal use of non-appropriate web sources. | Good quality sources used overall. More reliance on journal articles than text books. Web sources only used where appropriate at level 6 e.g. news and organisational information. | |
| General and
Presentation
|
Structure
= 5% Weighting |
No logical structure present. | Some structure present but with clear weaknesses. | Reasonable structure for the assessment task. | Effective structure that suits the assessment task. | Excellent structure that aids the flow of the work and is well-suited to the assessment task. |
| Writing Style
= 5% Weighting |
Poorly written, hard to follow and disjointed. | Some major weaknesses in writing style and points poorly developed. | Satisfactory writing style and development of discussion. | Good writing style and effective development of discussion overall. | Well-written with a clear and flowing prose. | |
| Referencing style using SHU-approved APA approach
= 5% Weighting |
Very poor style adopted or no attempt at referencing. | Poor style adopted with a large number of key errors. | Reasonable style adopted with some key errors. | Good style overall with limited or small errors. | Accurate style adopted overall with few or minimal errors. | |
