Assignment: Definitional Thread
Assignment: Definitional Thread
Assignment: Definitional Thread
Assignment: Definitional Thread
Assignment: Definitional Thread
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Leadership is about what you do. This definitional thread focuses on the importance of followers. Leader influence attempts are neither random nor self-centered. Instead, leaders channel their influence and encourage change in order to meet the needs or to reach the goals of a group (task force, business organization, social movement, state legislature, military unit, nation). Note the group orientation in the following definitions:
• the behavior of an individual when he/she is involved in directing group activities;16
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Leadership and Communication 11
• the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal setting and goal achievement.17
Placing leadership in the context of group achievement helps to clarify the difference between leadership and persuasion. Persuasion involves changing attitudes and behavior through rational and emotional arguments. Since per- suasive tactics can be used solely for personal gain, persuasion is not always a leadership activity. Persuasion, although critical to effective leadership, is only one of many influence tools available to a leader.
Leadership is about how you work with others. This definitional theme emphasizes collaboration. Leaders and followers establish mutual purposes and work together as partners to reach their goals. Success is the product of leaders’ and followers’ joint efforts. Joseph Rost highlights the interdepen- dence of leaders/followers this way: “Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and their collaborators [followers] who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes.”18 Others, such as Peter Block and Robert Greenleaf, discuss concepts such as “stewardship” and “servant leadership” in defining leadership as a partnership with followers.19
Combining our discussion of human communication with the definitional elements above, we offer the following communication-based definition of leadership: Leadership is human (symbolic) communication that modifies the attitudes and behaviors of others in order to meet shared group goals and needs. (For a sampling of how some other textbooks have defined leader- ship, see box 1.4.)
Leaders vs. Managers Management is often equated with leadership. However, leading differs sig-
nificantly from managing. Managers may act as leaders, but often they do not. Similarly, employees can take a leadership role even though they do not have a
Box 1.4 Leadership Definitions: A Textbook Sampler
“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.”—Peter Northouse20
“Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.”—Gary Yukl21
“A leader [can be defined as] a person who influences individuals and groups within an orga- nization, helps them in the establishment of goals, and guides them toward achievement of those goals, thereby allowing them to be effective.”—Afsaneh Nahavandi22
“Leadership is social influence. It means leaving a mark, it is initiating and guiding, and the result is change.”—George Manning and Kent Curtis23
“Leadership. . . . a dynamic (fluid), interactive, working relationship between a leader and one or more followers, operating within the framework of a group context for the accomplishment of some collective goal.”—Jon Pierce and John Newstrom24
Hackman-Johnson 6E.book Page 11 Tuesday, March 12, 2013 12:54 PM
12 Chapter One
managerial position. Leadership experts James Kouzes and Barry Posner suggest the following exercise to highlight the differences between leaders and manag- ers. Take a sheet of paper and make two columns. In the first column, identify the activities, behaviors, and actions of leaders. In the second column, list the activities, behaviors, and actions of managers. Now compare the two lists. Kouzes and Posner predict that you will associate leaders with factors such as change, crisis, and innovation and that you will associate managers with organi- zational stability. According to these authors, “When we think of leaders, we recall times of turbulence, conflict, innovation, and change. When we think of managers, we recall times of stability, harmony, maintenance, and constancy.”25
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
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Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
- The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
- Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
- Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
- One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
- I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
- Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
- In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
- Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
- Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
- Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
- Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
- I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
- I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
- As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
- It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
- For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
- Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
- Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
- Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
- The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
- Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
- If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
- I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
- As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
- Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
- Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
- Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
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