Assignment Requirements
Step 1: Core Reading
- Read John Kotter’s “What Leaders Really Do” (Harvard Business Review). What Leaders Really DoLinks to an external site.
- Identify and critically analyze Kotter’s key insights into leadership roles and functions.
Step 2: Select a Leader
- Choose a real-world leader engaged in a negotiation or conflict resolution scenario (e.g., a business negotiation, labor dispute, corporate merger, international peace process, labor-management conflict).
- The leader may come from the corporate, nonprofit, political, or international sphere.
Step 3: Scholarly Analysis (2,000 Words) In a double-spaced, 2,000-word paper, address the following:
- Background and Context
- Provide an overview of the leader’s background, qualifications, and leadership role.
- Describe the negotiation or conflict resolution context and the leader’s specific role in it.
- Application of Kotter’s Insights
- Apply Kotter’s ideas from “What Leaders Really Do” to assess how the leader approached negotiation and conflict.
- Identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas of alignment/divergence from Kotter’s framework.
- Broader Theoretical Integration
- Integrate at least two additional leadership frameworks (e.g., Transformational vs. Transactional Leadership, Negotiation Theory from Fisher & Ury, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in conflict, Adaptive Leadership).
- Use these frameworks to deepen your critique and commendation of the leader’s style, decision-making, and effectiveness.
- Global & Cultural Lens
- Analyze how cultural context (organizational, national, or global) influenced the leader’s negotiation and conflict resolution approach.
- Consider cross-cultural dimensions of communication, decision-making, and outcomes.
- Critique and Commendation
- Evaluate the leader’s leadership style, decision-making processes, communication strategies, and conflict management effectiveness.
- Highlight what worked, what failed, and why.
- Recommendations
- Provide executive-level, actionable recommendations for how the leader could enhance their effectiveness.
- Recommendations should integrate Kotter, additional scholarly frameworks, and your own analysis.
Citations: Minimum of 8–10 scholarly references (HBR, course texts, peer-reviewed journals). APA format required.
Step 4: Executive Briefing (10 Slides)
Develop a 10-slide PowerPoint presentation that distills your findings into a boardroom-ready executive briefing. This is not a student presentation; frame it as if you are consultants advising senior executives.
Slide Format:
- Title Slide: Project Title, Student Name, Course Name/Number, Date.
- Introduction: Purpose and scope of the presentation.
- Leader Background: Brief profile and context of negotiation/conflict.
- Kotter’s Key Insights: Summary of Kotter’s concepts and their relevance.
- Leadership Approach: Analysis of strengths/weaknesses using Kotter.
- Communication Strategies: Effectiveness in managing negotiation/conflict.
- Decision-Making: Alignment with best practices; strengths/limitations.
- Conflict Management: Strategies used and their impact on resolution.
- Recommendations: Actionable, evidence-based improvements.
- Conclusion: Key findings, implications for leadership in conflict, final insights.
Each slide should include concise bullet points, visuals, and at least one supporting citation. A reference slide (APA format) must be included.