Reference no: EM132978022 , Length: 2000 Words

Assignment - Writing as a future leader or manager in a chosen sector of business, develop a Leadership Blog that responds to the following themes:

1. Can cultures be managed within organisations? (1000 words)
2. Contemporary Leadership Styles: How relevant are they in today's changing world? (1000 words)

Details of the task

Writing as a future leader or manager in your chosen sector of business, develop a Leadership Blog that respond to the following 2 themes:
1. Can cultures be managed within organisations? (1000 words)
2. Contemporary Leadership Styles: How relevant are they in today's changing world? (1000 words)

Format: Public WordPress Blog (converted to a word document for submission) with a cover sheet including link to your WordPress blog*
*You must include a link to your blog on the cover sheet of your submission - failure to do so will cause you to fail the assignment. Click this Cover Sheet for M005 End of Module Assignment.docx link to view and download the file.

Blog 1: Can cultures be managed within organisations?

Blog 1: background context
Organisational culture is often defined as a set of beliefs, behaviours, systems, symbols and values that an organisation holds about itself. It affects the way that people in an organisation interact with each other and with others external to the organisation, including clients and stakeholders. The tone for corporate culture is set by organisational leadership who design and implement the processes and systems within which the organisation operates and which enable employees to comply with the organisational values.

An organisational culture will take several years to establish before employees are influenced and enabled to adhere to the company's values and standards. A goal of an organisation should be to enable every employee to abide by and live the organisation's culture to enable it to achieve and deliver its clients' expectations. During the lifecycle of an organisation there may be times when an entrenched culture needs to change to enable it to grow and sustain its business. This is one of the hardest tasks that organisational leadership may face.

In your response for this blog focus on what you think about how you would encourage organisations to embrace organisational culture supported by contemporary research to inform your argument. Do not rely on quotes from published authors - your blog must present your ideas and recommendations for effecting cultural change, supported by relevant citations.

Blog instructions (word count: 1000)
Your task in this blog is to conduct independent research that will enable you to:
1. Select a real business [in an industry of your choice] that is currently facing a need to adjust its organisational culture in response to a business need such as competitive innovation, ethical challenges, economic pressures or societal expectation.
2. Explain the principal challenges that an organisation faces when seeking to adjust and accommodate changes in its cultural practice, based on your understanding of corporate culture and its implementation.
3. Propose implementation strategies that will enable your chosen organisation to transition its organisational culture to address the challenges that you have identified, and
4. Develop a charter statement that outlines what an organisation's leadership should do to embrace new cultural practices including cognitive drivers, resource reallocation, employee motivation and embedding cultural practice.
Understanding the key words
In this blog, you are asked to think and write in specific ways as a MBA student. Below are some short explanations about these keywords:
Select - introduce a real business currently experiencing the need to adjust its organisational culture. Provide reasons for choosing this organisation and how the learning can impact on your leadership style.
Explain - using evidence from previous research and case studies, explain the principal challenges the chosen business faces with reference to contemporary theory on organisational culture. What are the implications of using this theory or model?
Propose - using your research skills, analyse the approaches previous leaders have taken to change their organisations' culture and what lessons can current leaders learn from them and make recommendations to manage cultural change.
Develop - using your writing skills, publish a charter statement that outlines what you think organisational leadership needs to do to enable cultural change.

Reviewing your work
After you have written your blog, read it all the way to the end to check that you have:

1. Used a real organisation to showcase the impact of cultural change on organisational efficiency and to make recommendations for implementing changes to cultural practice. Used an appropriate contemporary theory on organisational culture or model studied in this module

2. Specified recommendations to demonstrate what you have learned about enabling cultural adherence and how you would facilitate new cultural practices.

3. Considered how your chosen organisation might publish its charter statement to demonstrate explicitly what organisational leadership might do to embrace and institutionalise new cultural practices.

4. Used in-text citations throughout your blog to show where your knowledge of organisational culture theory and practice comes from.

5. Actively engaged with your followers on the WordPress blog.

Blog 2:
Contemporary Leadership Styles: How relevant are they in today's changing world?

Blog 2: background context

Please respond to the following statement: "Leadership models of the last century have been products of top-down, bureaucratic paradigms. These models are eminently effective for an economy premised on physical production but are not well-suited for a more knowledge oriented economy" (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007: 298).

Uhl-Bien et al (2007) suggest that the leadership theories from the 20th century are not appropriate for knowledge based economies. Others have critiqued how leadership theories are mostly masculine theories based on Western working practices.

Your task for this blog is to debate how you think leadership theories need to be developed in the future. Should research be conducted on feminine leadership? On leadership practices in Asian or African or Middle Eastern Contexts?

Blog instructions (word count: 1000)

Your task in this blog is to conduct independent research that will require you to:

1. Describe how scholars and practitioners have challenged these leadership theories.

2. Identify the challenges current leaders are experiencing in leading in a changing world.

3. Use relevant examples from your chosen industry in order to evaluate the impact it has on people / organisation.

4. Discuss how you think leadership theories should develop in the future based on academic research.

Understanding the key words

In this blog, you are asked to think and write in specific ways as a MBA student. Below are some short explanations about these keywords:
Describe - Using your knowledge of the theories on leadership you have learnt so far, begin to think about how people have challenged these theories. Introduce the argument critiquing modern leadership theories. When did this critique start? Who were the main scholars contributing to this argument? What are their main arguments?

Identify - Using your research skills gather information on the challenges current leaders in the world are experiencing in adopting Western Leadership Styles.

Use - Use real examples in your chosen industry to support your views on challenges current leaders are experiencing in leading in a changing world.

Discuss and develop - how you think leadership theories should develop in the future based on academic research. Use real examples and conclude using your own words and views, backed up by the theory.

Reviewing your work

After you have written your blog, read it all the way to the end to check that you have:

1. Used appropriate theories or models of leadership studied in this module.

2. Discussed the broad argument which critiques modern leadership theories.

3. Made recommendations for how leadership researchers should conduct research in the future.

4. Used in-text citations throughout your blog to show where your knowledge of leadership comes from.

5. Actively engaged with your followers on the WordPress blog. Taken screen shots of the conversations and inserted it in the final word document which you will submit on Moodle.

What you must not do: Do not simply use direct quotes to explain your point. Think carefully about what the author is arguing, do you agree?

Attachment:- Contemporary Leadership.rar