Order Description
Conduct an interview with a manger who ideally responsible for other staff rather than just material resources. Write a review of the encounter in which you synthesize the academic leadership theory with the empirical data you collect. That is you should explore how the lived experience of managers’ relates to a particular aspect of the academic leadership literature?
Evidence of the event a brief paragraph on their background and role should also be submitted as an appendix to your review.
Additional background and advice
Clearly in a short encounter is impossible to cover all aspects of the leadership literature and hence you should focus your substantive questions on a particular aspect of leadership that interests you. E.g. range of roles played by managers, power and management, gender and leadership, strategic change and leadership, culture and leadership etc
It is suggested that you make arrangements for an interview as early in the term as possible with a view to collecting the data towards the end of the module. Select members at any level of seniority in any organisation – ideally they should be responsible for other staff and have people reporting to them. For the interview with a practitioner and the data collection you can arrange to work on this part of the assignment with a colleague. However you must ensure that there is no collusion around the writing up of the interview.
You need to think about gaining access to a suitable individual, planning and designing the interview e.g. structure and format; different types of question (open/closed); starting and ending the interview; ways of recording data (consider the use of a tape recorder) as well as issues such as confidentiality.
Your review of the interview could contain a theoretical section on the particular leadership literature you have chosen to explore. It should contain a section in which you relate theory to practice. It should also contain direct quotes from the interviewee to illustrate particular concepts, theories and perspectives. Your review should be appropriately referenced.
