MGT SLP 2

Module 2 – SLP

ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL: SITUATIONAL APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

Signature Assignment: Written Communication, Introduced level

In this assignment, your written communication skills will be assessed. The Communication rubric will be useful for this purpose. In MGT401, written communications skills will be assessed at the “introduced” level. In LED402, written communication skills will be assessed at the “reinforced” level. Finally, in MGT420, your written communication skills will be assessed at the “emphasized” level. The skills needed in these three assignments build on each other and offer you the opportunity to enhance and practice your written communication skills. The grading rubric for written communication at the undergraduate level has been developed to measure student success in meeting the MGT401 SLP 2 expectations. Rubrics for the other two courses are included in their respective assignments. (Students can find the rubric to an assignment from the course homepage under Module Activities, then clicking on the Dropbox link, then looking in lower right-hand corner for the rubric.)

For the Module 2 SLP assignment, you will continue to apply the concepts from the background materials to your own experiences in the workplace. Think carefully about Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model and the four leadership styles of Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating. Then consider the styles of one of the supervisors you have worked with, and reflect upon whether or not their style changed depending on the situation.

According to Lacey (2021) the developmental levels in the Situational Leadership model are: 

Development level 1 (D1): Employee has low competence but high commitment. Development level 2 (D2): Employee has some competence but low commitment. Development level 3 (D3): Employee has high competence and variable commitment. Development level 4 (D4): Employee has high competence and high commitment” (p. 6).

After doing some reflecting on your own experiences, and reviewing the background materials, write a 
2 full-page paper (excluding title and references pages) addressing the following issues:

1. Which of these levels best describes the developmental level of your supervisor’s full team?

2. How would you describe the tasks required of your supervisor’s full team? Are they structured or unstructured?

3. Overall, how well does your supervisor’s leadership style match with the developmental level of their team and the characteristics of the team’s tasks? Consider the Situational Leadership model for developmental level and the Path-Goal model for task characteristics in your answer.

4. Last, include 2 recommendations for how your supervisor could change their leadership style.

SLP Assignment Expectations

1. Your SLP should be 2 – 3 pages in length (not including title and reference pages). This means the submission must be at least 2 full pages. It must include an introduction below the paper’s title prior to the answer to the first assignment question and a Conclusion on the last page before the References list page. There should be nothing in the top left corner of the paper and only a page number in the top right corner of all pages.

2. Be sure to cite and reference (using APA Style, 7th ed.) a minimum of 2 scholarly sources listed in the Course Materials and Bibliography (Module 2 Required and Optional Reading List), in the Module 2 Background Page: Required and Optional Readings, or in the Trident Online Library (peer-reviewed journal articles). Upload your paper to the SLP 2 Dropbox before the assignment due date.

3. Include both a reference page and in-text citations. Citation and reference style instructions are available at Trident University’s 

Introduction to APA
.  Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My Resources” in the TLC portal, or the APA Manual (7th ed.). 

Your essay submission should be 2-3 pages, not counting the cover page and reference list page. Use Times New Roman size 12 font; double-space everything, including references, but do not add extra spacing between paragraphs or after headings; and make sure your margins are one inch on all four sides. You can view how the cover page content should appear in the sample paper found in the

 Purdue OWL APA Formatting and Style Guide
. Student papers do not require a running head on any page. In addition, students are not required to include an Abstract. Your paper’s title should be above the first paragraph on page two (there can be no paragraph with the title of “Introduction”). Last, all pages must have a page number in the top-right corner of the header and absolutely nothing in the top left corner of the header.

The references found online via a tool like Google, in the Trident Online Library, or even in the courses may not be in correct APA format. For this reason, you are expected to research how to correctly format references. Do not just copy citations and expect them to be correct. The basic format of references are:

Author, A. B. (2020, December 25). Title of the article. 
Title of the Academic Journal, 55(3), 23-28.  

· 55 is the volume number for this fictitious example of a perfectly formatted reference of a journal article. Article titles are never typed in italics.  

Author, A. B., Bolden, C., & Cheswick, D. E. (2023). 
The art of leadership. John Wiley and Son. 

· This is the reference format for a fictitious book. Book titles never begin every word with a capital letter, but they are always typed in italics. Notice the use of an ampersand before the last listed author. 

MacMillan, P. (2020). 
Modern paradigms of leadership [Video]. Alexander Street. Available in the Trident Online Library. 

· This is the reference format for a video. The video title is always in italics.

Additional citation and reference style instructions are available at 

Purdue OWL
 ( and 

Trident University’s Introduction to APA Style
, 7th edition.

You will find the following useful as you critique sources:

Herring, J. E. (2011). Chapter 3: Evaluating websites, Figure 3.1, p. 38. In 
Improving students’ web use and information literacy: a guide for teachers and teacher librarians. Facet Publishing. Available in the Trident Online Library, EBSCO eBook Collection.

Lack, C. W., & Rousseau, J. (2016). Chapter 4: What is critical thinking? In 
Critical thinking, science, and pseudoscience: Why we can’t trust our brains. Springer Publishing Company. Available in the Trident Online Library, EBSCO eBook Collection.

Your submission will be assessed on the criteria found in the written communications grading rubric for this assignment:

· Context and purpose for writing

· Content

· Adherence to conventions in specific disciplines

· Sources of evidence

· Syntax control

· Timeliness

Module 2 – Background

ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL: SITUATIONAL APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

Required Reading

A good place to start is by viewing the following short videos that will introduce you to some of the main concepts covered in this module. A key issue to remember as you go through the materials is that each of these leadership models has “inputs”—regarding the situation the leader faces—and “outputs” in terms of the actions or style the leader should take given the situation. For example, the Situational Leadership model takes employee commitment and competence as “inputs.” Then based on the employees’ commitment and competency, you choose one of four different approaches (e.g., coaching, delegating, etc.).

Jenkinson, P. (2018, November 26). 

Hersey Blanchard situational leadership
 [Video]. YouTube.

Now take a look at the following readings for more detail about Situational Leadership, Fiedler’s Contingency, and Path-Goal models. Pay close attention to both the “inputs”—such as traits of the employee or the situation—as well as “outputs,” which are the leadership style that you should use for the given situation and type of employees.

Fabac, R., Kokot, K., & Bubalo, I. (2022).  Path-goal theory – leadership styles and their changes during the Covid-19 pandemic. 
Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 20(4), 349-374 DOI: 10.7906/indecs.20.4.4. Available in the Trident Online Library.

Griffin Jordan, R. (2021). 
Secondary principal perceptions of preparatory experiences [Doctoral dissertation, Gardner-Webb University]. Available in the Trident Online Library. 

Lacey, J. M. (2019). 
Student development and studio management in applied music teaching through implementation of the Situational Leadership model (Order No. 13812073) [Doctoral dissertation, Florida State University]. Available in the Trident Online Library. 

The following Straker reference is a great website that has freely available information about a variety of leadership theories as well as numerous other disciplines:

Straker, D. (n.d.). (n.d.). 

Leadership theories
. 
Changing Minds. 

Thompson, G., & Glasø, L. (2018). Situational leadership theory: A test from a leader-follower congruence approach. 
Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 39(5), 574-591. Available in the Trident Online Library, ProQuest database.

Note: If you still want to tie up some loose ends regarding the three main leadership models for this module, then take a look at some of the optional videos and text. None are required but are highly recommended.

Optional Reading

Gregg Learning. (2019). 

Fiedler’s contingency theory
 [Video]. YouTube.

Pasaribu, S. B., Goestjahjanti, F. S., Srinita, S., Novitasari, D., & Haryanto, B. (2022, May 2). 

The role of situational leadership on job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and employee performance
. 
Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 896539-896539.