Leadership and Management in an Organization

1. Statement of leadership

Many well-known leaders wrote and continue to write in journals, reflecting on their actions and decisions in their leadership roles. These reflections allow leaders to revisit their choices and learn how to improve their actions and decisions to become more effective leaders in the future.

Directions
Write a reflective paper describing your leadership style and skills. Reflect on what you have learned throughout the course, and think about how you can use this knowledge to further your career. Use the results of your self-assessments, leadership map, and other course materials to guide your reflection. Begin your reflection with a single statement that concisely summarizes your leadership style and approach. The statement should be one that you could later share on LinkedIn or your resume. You could also use it to guide your professional development.
Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
1. Leadership Approach:
. Leadership Skills: Describe your primary leadership skills and describe how these skills will help you effectively lead a team. Additionally, describe skills or attributes you would like to develop and improve upon in order to become a better leader.
A. Leading and Following: Explain the importance of being able to both lead and follow when working as part of a team, along with how well you are able to lead and follow on a team while in a leadership role.
B. Leadership Style: Describe your personal leadership style and explain how you intend to use that style when working with a diverse, dynamic team.

2. Organizational Evaluation Proposal

Imagine you are a new manager at the SNHU Pet Supply Company. The company has grown from a small, local pet-supply company into a large organization with locations in Manchester, New Hampshire and Denver, Colorado. It also employs remote staff. The manager you are replacing was with the team for two years and left on negative terms, which exacerbated an already concerning team culture.
You have been asked to present a management plan that addresses identified areas of concern, rebuilds the team's culture, and aligns organizational practices to leadership.
Leadership has provided you with a management brief that outlines the key pieces of information you will need in order to make informed recommendations.

Directions
Use course resources and the information provided in the Project One Management Brief (located in the Supporting Materials section) to develop recommendations that will meet the needs of your new team and align with your organization's mission, vision, culture statement, and goals.

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
1. Team Management
. Leadership and Management: Describe leadership and management practices that you feel would be best suited to manage the team. Explain why you believe these practices are in alignment with the organization's mission, culture, and goals, as well as how they would be effective in improving the team's culture.
A. Followership: Explain how you would leverage your strengths as a leader to strengthen the team's effectiveness and culture. Also explain how your strengths could be used to develop followership within your team.
B. Decision-Making Models: Describe decision-making models that you believe will be the most effective for the team and management approach and their alignment with the organization, as well as how they would be effective in improving the team's culture.
C. Emotional Intelligence: Describe considerations for ensuring your management practices are emotionally intelligent and inclusive of diverse perspectives, needs, and roles within your team. Explain why you believe they are in alignment with the organization and how they would be effective in improving the team's culture.
2. Communication and Collaboration Across Functions
. Forms and Functions: Explain how the various forms and functions of the organization impact the team; also explain how the team impacts the various forms and functions across the organization.
A. Communication Practices: Describe the strengths and weaknesses of the current communication practices being used across functions, and recommend better ways to communicate that meet the organization's needs.
B. Organizational Mission, Vision, and Goals: Explain the general purpose of organizational missions, culture statements, and goals and what these three things say about the way an organization should operate. Take organizational structure, leadership and management approaches, and diversity and inclusion practices into account when considering an operation.

3. Project One

Imagine you are a new manager at the SNHU Pet Supply Company. The company has grown from a small, local pet-supply company into a large organization with locations in Manchester, New Hampshire and Denver, Colorado. It also employs remote staff. The manager you are replacing was with the team for two years and left on negative terms, which exacerbated an already concerning team culture.
You have been asked to present a management plan that addresses identified areas of concern, rebuilds the team's culture, and aligns organizational practices to leadership.
Leadership has provided you with a management brief that outlines the key pieces of information you will need in order to make informed recommendations.

Directions
Use course resources and the information provided in the Project One Management Brief (located in the Supporting Materials section) to develop recommendations that will meet the needs of your new team and align with your organization's mission, vision, culture statement, and goals.

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
1. Team Management
. Leadership and Management: Describe leadership and management practices that you feel would be best suited to manage the team. Explain why you believe these practices are in alignment with the organization's mission, culture, and goals, as well as how they would be effective in improving the team's culture.
A. Followership: Explain how you would leverage your strengths as a leader to strengthen the team's effectiveness and culture. Also explain how your strengths could be used to develop followership within your team.
B. Decision-Making Models: Describe decision-making models that you believe will be the most effective for the team and management approach and their alignment with the organization, as well as how they would be effective in improving the team's culture.
C. Emotional Intelligence: Describe considerations for ensuring your management practices are emotionally intelligent and inclusive of diverse perspectives, needs, and roles within your team. Explain why you believe they are in alignment with the organization and how they would be effective in improving the team's culture.
2. Communication and Collaboration Across Functions
. Forms and Functions: Explain how the various forms and functions of the organization impact the team; also explain how the team impacts the various forms and functions across the organization.
A. Communication Practices: Describe the strengths and weaknesses of the current communication practices being used across functions, and recommend better ways to communicate that meet the organization's needs.
B. Organizational Mission, Vision, and Goals: Explain the general purpose of organizational missions, culture statements, and goals and what these three things say about the way an organization should operate. Take organizational structure, leadership and management approaches, and diversity and inclusion practices into account when considering an operation.

4. Project two

Many well-known leaders wrote and continue to write in journals, reflecting on their actions and decisions in their leadership roles. These reflections allow leaders to revisit their choices and learn how to improve their actions and decisions to become more effective leaders in the future.

Directions
Write a reflective paper describing your leadership style and skills. Reflect on what you have learned throughout the course, and think about how you can use this knowledge to further your career. Use the results of your self-assessments, leadership map, and other course materials to guide your reflection. Begin your reflection with a single statement that concisely summarizes your leadership style and approach. The statement should be one that you could later share on LinkedIn or your resume. You could also use it to guide your professional development.
Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
1. Leadership Approach:
. Leadership Skills: Describe your primary leadership skills and describe how these skills will help you effectively lead a team. Additionally, describe skills or attributes you would like to develop and improve upon in order to become a better leader.
A. Leading and Following: Explain the importance of being able to both lead and follow when working as part of a team, along with how well you are able to lead and follow on a team while in a leadership role.
B. Leadership Style: Describe your personal leadership style and explain how you intend to use that style when working with a diverse, dynamic team.

5. Organizational Structures

You work for an organization that has traditionally been very formalized, and managers have had a very broad span of control over direct reports from multiple departments and functions. This worked well in the past; managers were able to oversee a high number of direct reports because there were many rules and regulations dictating how their work should be performed. However, there were downsides. Employee talent was underused, and there wasn't a strong team culture, as most work was done independently according to standard operating processes.
Recently, the organization has been shifting to less formalized working structures to support more creative, innovative work and provide employees with more autonomy. While employees are happy with the purpose of these new changes, managers are feeling overwhelmed, and employees are feeling undersupported. This has impacted function-specific work the most, because in the past, managers didn't need to understand in-depth, function-specific tasks (such as the technical aspects of graphic design work or the intricacies of project management). Instead, they had the ability to rely on rules, regulations, and standard operating processes. Employees have also noticed a lack of communication around current projects, which has led to a lack of updated information and duplicated work across management teams.
You have been asked to work with the human resources department to recommend a new organizational structure that addresses these identified management and communication concerns.

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
• Updated Organizational Structure Chart: Create an updated organizational structure chart that addresses management and communication concerns.
• Explanation of Changes: Explain your reasoning for why you made the changes you did to the company's organizational structure. Include how your changes differ from the original and why you believe they would benefit the organization.
• Impact on Organizational Communication: Describe the impact these changes will have on the company's overall organizational communication.
• Impact on Team Communication: Describe the impact these changes will have on the company's overall team communication and reporting structure.