Leadership Project (Part 2): Leadership Interview and Reflection Paper
Assessment
This assignment is a 2000 – 2250 word written paper. This word count applies specifically to the substance of your paper. Title pages, headings, citations, and bibliographies DO NOT count toward this total.
Purpose
This assignment provides students the opportunity to apply their knowledge of leadership by evaluating the skills, values, methods, and performance of someone in a leadership position. Through a personal interview, the student will determine the leader’s strengths and weaknesses, accomplishments and failures, but, most importantly, how that individual’s approach to leadership conforms or diverges from the model presented by Kouzes and Posner in The Leadership Challenge. In a written report, the student will comment on the leader’s compliance with the Kouzes and Posner model, and provide recommendations on how that individual could improve his or her leadership in light of this model. For more information on the Leadership Challenge model, you can visit the website. Finally, students will have an opportunity to reflect on the experience and describe what they learned and how it will help them in their leadership journey.
- Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership Through Literature(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2006), Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr. (ISBN 1591399688)
- Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 2008), Andrew Crouch (ISBN 9780830833948)
- How Christianity Changed the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), Alvin J. Schmidt (ISBN 9780310264491)
- Christian Reflections on the Leadership Challenge (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner (editors) (9780787983376)
- The Holy Bible (any translation, but not a paraphrase (e.g., New Living Translation)
- Name of the leader – Jonathan Harrell
- Company, organization, or group associated with the leader – Regent University
- The leader’s position/title in the company, organization, or group – Assistant Vice President, IT
- The size of the group for which the leader is responsible – 36 People
- The number of years in leadership capacity – 21 Years
- A brief description of the role and responsibilities of this leader, and how this leader relates to your discipline (major, minor, etc.) – He manages the Information Technology and Media Services departments for the university. He is a manager and supervises numerous employees, manages budgets, and coordinate projects for the department.
- Your chosen writing style (APA, MLA, Turabian) – APA
I have added the questions I asked and what the leader (Jonathan) has responded.
Answer preview
Similarly, Jonathan invites his employees in the decision-making process, allowing them to be more confident in their daily tasks. One key success factor associated with Jonathan is the ability to delegate roles and duties to other employees. He believes that delegation not only allows employees to be responsible but model them to extremely valuable assets to the organization. He also supports the employees’ career growth through training and development. Three actions that Jonathan believes are essential to enable success in the organization include trust, training and development, and periodic performance evaluation. Jonathan encourages leaders to listen to their followers or employees to build trust and relationships. Like other people, employees need to be heard. Also, it was discovered that Jonathan utilizes servant leadership because he works towards supporting his employees. He addresses employees’ needs diligently and sees everyone as equal in the IT department. Jonathan’s core values include humility and integrity. He believes that applying both humility and integrity has helped him to remain firm and focused.
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