Week 8: Looking Ahead

Initial Post Instructions
Take a moment to review again our learning objectives for this course listed below. Identify one of the course learning outcomes and share with the class how you feel you have mastered that learning objective. What new skills or knowledge have you gained throughout the class that relate to that objective? What activities, resources or experiences in class helped you to gain that knowledge or skill? What strengths or weaknesses have you identified in yourself as a team member and leader that relate to that objective? What do you still have questions about or wish to explore further?

1. Given the need to design an effective strategy for the leader of a short-term academic or workplace team project, describe how team members with varying personalities and communication styles can be led collaboratively in the successful completion of the project. (Covered in Week 2)
2. Given a work scenario where an important organizational change has recently occurred, design strategies a leader can use to establish quality leadership in that new work setting, considering effective leadership variables, leadership qualities, and situational work factors. (Covered in Week 1)
3. Given a competition-driven workplace where the leader is aware of important changes that may affect the market and alter the structure of the organization, assess the need for a vision, and factors contributing to organizational climate and power while considering the importance of values and ethics in the workplace. (Covered in Weeks 3 & 5)
4. Given a work-group situation such as a team’s discrepancy about performance, where the supervisor/manager has been asked by the members to intervene, generate possible relevant resolutions that will increase worker morale, acknowledge variables that define human relations in the workplace, and account for team development processes, placing emphasis on the leader/supervisor/manager role as team developer and facilitator. (Covered in Week 5)
5. Given that a newcomer to an organization is promoted to leader of an existing work group that has gone through a period of negative business transactions, low work quality, and low morale, demonstrate how the new leader can gain authority, establish quality as an imperative, and also empower subordinates. (Covered in Week 4)
6. Given that a relatively new leader is asked to appraise his or her subordinates, evaluate the different appraisal tools that could be used, the possible consequences of performance appraisal, and the effects of performance appraisals on discipline, compensation, behavior modification, and professional development.(Covered in Week 6)
7. Given that a group is assigned to a completely new work venue (or project) under the responsibility of a new but highly technically trained supervisor, determine the different strategies that can be used to ensure effective work assignment and work delegation and specifically analyze the role of personality and job fit. (Covered in Week 3)
8. Given that in a group with strong ethnic or cultural identity the supervisor/manager hires two new individuals who differ from the existing group, assess the variables that would affect the resulting work team, such as personality, sources of diversity, emotional intelligence, motivational levels, and conflict resolution skills of all stakeholders. (Covered in Week 7)
9. Given a chosen business sector where new technologies are being introduced, determine the different training and human resource development strategies that could be used, the consequences of ineffective change management practices, and the possible effects of, and ways of preventing, stress and burnout. (Covered in Week 6)
10. Given an individual who has leadership experience or aspirations, generate a proposal for the development and/or evaluation of a leadership development plan, based on leadership and situational variables such as team processes, sources and effects of diversity, organizational change factors, ethics, personal and interpersonal psychological factors, hiring, training, and performance appraisal procedures, power relationships, and motivational factors. (Covered in Week 2)