MGMT214 - Leadership and Organisational Sustainability

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Nil

Incompatible

MGMT305 Management and Leadership

Teaching organisation

Unit rationale, description and aim

Leadership is a highly influential factor in achieving sustainable organisational outcomes by effectively responding to the constantly shifting business landscape where a global focus, digital advances and social-political shifts occur rapidly. Leaders need to understand the cultural, organisational, ethical and political implications of their decisions and practices. If students are able to do this, they will need knowledge of leadership research, leadership from individual, collective, ethical, followership and psychoanalytic perspectives and new and emergent perspectives on leadership and its links to identity, virtuality and spirituality. Further, this unit will provide students with knowledge and capability to become acquainted to respond effectively, efficiently, ethically and authentically to many challenges, tensions and paradoxes facing today’s organisations and communities. Students will apply their knowledge in leading organisations and staff and contributes to sustainable organisational outcomes. 

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Explain relevant theories, concepts and principles in leading and managing people in contemporary organisations considering the managerial responsibility to the common good and the environment (GA2, GA5)

LO2 - Identify core leadership and management skills needed in the contemporary workplace in undertaking ethical informed decision making (GA3, GA5)

LO3 - Apply various leadership and management skills in a variety of situations by drawing on their knowledge of the major frameworks, concepts and theories of leadership. (GA5, GA8)

LO4 - Critically reflect on the challenges of leading and managing people in the workplace and develop your abilities to build upon your strengths and enhance your weakness (GA4, GA5)

Graduate attributes

GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society 

GA3 - apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

Content

Topics will include:

• Introduction to Leadership
• Identifying principles of sustainable leadership
• Leadership skills
• Leadership theories and approaches
• Individual differences and leadership approaches
• Ethical, spirituality and leadership approaches
• Power, politics and organisational leadership
• Collective approaches to leadership
• Followership - why should we become a good follower?
• Collective approaches to leadership
• The role of communication in leading sustainable organisations
• Trends in Leadership

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

The overall aim of this course is to prepare you personally and academically to appreciate leadership in the 21st century. More specifically, the course will acquaint you with relevant leadership theories, concepts and principles, and provide you with an opportunity to integrate leadership theory and practice. The course is designed to assist you in reflecting on the purpose and effectiveness of your leadership and management skills, and to improve your potential to lead and make a difference in the workplace. By participating in workshops, students will systematically develop their understanding of the critical frameworks and approaches of leadership and how they can be effectively applied to deliver sustainable organisational outcomes. This unit takes an experiential approach to support students in developing the skills required to effectively, efficiently, ethically and authentically lead organisations by sharing stories and insights and reflecting on experiences. This approach is designed to interest students who prefer to learn within a social environment and builds in expert support for skills development. 

Assessment strategy and rationale

In order to pass this unit, students are required to complete and submit three graded assessment tasks and achieve an aggregate mark of at least 50%. Marking will be in accordance with a rubric specifically developed to measure student levels of achievement of the learning outcomes for each item of assessment. Students will also be awarded a final grade which signifies their overall achievement in the unit. The assessment strategy for this unit allows students to sequentially develop their knowledge and skills of leadership to the point where they are able to critically reflect on their own leadership practices and capabilities and develop a personal leadership development strategy. To develop this level of capability, students will demonstrate their knowledge of leadership through a critical essay, work in a group to analyse a leadership case study, then apply their knowledge and understanding by presenting their reflections, conclusions and findings and leadership development strategy in the final assessment task. 

The assessment tasks for this unit are designed for you to demonstrate your achievement of each learning outcome of the unit.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Antonakis, J. and Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.

Covelli, BJ, and Mason, I., 2017. Linking theory to practice; Authentic Leadership. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, Vol 16 (3), PP 1-10.  

Daft, RL 20187. The Leadership Experience. 7th ed/, n Cengage Learning US

DuBrin, AJ, Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills, 2018,  98th ed., n Cengage Learning US

Dugan, JP., 2017. Leadership Theory: Cultivating critical perspectives. San Francisco, California. Jossey-Bass.

Ernst, B., Banks, G., Blanchard, A., Gooty, J., & Bochantin, J., 2020. An Examination of the Effects of Charismatic Leadership on Follower Performance in Face-to-face and Virtual Settings, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Gordon, R., 2017. Strategic Transformational Organizational Leadership. In Encyclopedia of Strategic Leadership and Management (pp. 1667-1684). IGI Global.

Mendenhall, M.E., Osland, J., Bird, A., Oddou, G.R., Stevens, M.J., Maznevski, M.L. and Stahl, G.K. eds., 2017. Global leadership: Research, practice, and development. Routledge.

Molinaro, V., 2017. The Leadership Contract Field Guide: The Personal Roadmap to Becoming a Truly Accountable Leader, John Wiley and Sons

Renz, D.O., 2016. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John Wiley & Sons.

Schedlitzki, D. and Edwards, G., 20187. Studying leadership: traditional and critical approaches. 2nd ed., Sage.

Yukl, GA 2019, Leadership in organizations, 9th ed., Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River NJ.