The purpose of this assignment is to engageyou in a thoughtful observation (and reflection) of a leader and/or leadership in your own organization to increase your awareness of leaders and how leadership is being practiced in the context of an organisation.
You are mainly observing the leadership traits, skills and behaviours and possible emotional intelligence exhibited by the leader you are observing. (Therefore this is much broader than just style you indicate in your question which is only one of the frameworks)
However it depends on what you believe explains their leadership best to you as you reflect on what you see. And this could be anything in this unit such as situational factors.
You observe them in whatever situation you think appropriate and analyse and evaluate how this links with the theoretical frameworks we are covering in the unit to explain what you are observing.
The follow may form some headings in the essay but also look at the assessment rubric to make sure you are addressing the criteria against which you will be marked:
- what I observed;
- how I reacted;
- what I did and
- how I understand it all versus the approaches to leadership we have been studying, including relevant theories/models and;
- what recommendations do I have for the leader and the organisation?
It is strongly recommended that as various leadership approaches are considered in class, you need to develop a list of the behaviors/factors to be observed with a brief definition and a space to record notes about the observation, your reaction and your response.
However try to concentrate around at least 2-3 findings coming out of this and concentrate your research around that leadership theory.
Try not to get lost ion the vast literature on leadership in this early assessment. Focus your research and reading.
e.g. if you think there is a problem with Emotional Intelligence then focus your research around that
or if there are skills issues focus around the skills research in leadership etc etc
Note: a good place to start id the Northouse chapters where you will find references at the back of each chapter which are seminal writings on that particular theory of leadership etc.
When you go to the journal search ( which is where you should be headed on the WSU library site) these articles will use these writings as citations so just look for something that is relevant or refine your search.