Assessment Aim:

To enable students to demonstrate deeper understanding of strategic leadership and how it influences the survival, operations and future direction of organisations. Students should be able to outline and evaluate factors that enables employee engagement in organisations. This assessment is also designed to demonstrate appreciation of different traits of leadership and its application in for success in various levels of organisations.

Learning Outcome (LO) covered:

The assignment includes the following learning outcome/s:

1. Determine the strategic objectives for an entity in the key areas of business management.
   1. Range: operations, management accounting, sales/marketing, HR, and risk management.
2. Critically discuss the significance of effective leadership in the key areas of a business to achieve the strategic objectives of the entity.
3. Outline and evaluate the factors that have to be in place before a high level of employee ‘engagement’ can be achieved.
4. Determine the attitudes, behaviours and capabilities required for effective leadership (at strategic, managerial and operational levels) in order to facilitate a high performance working and ‘engagement’ culture.

 General requirements:

Students are expected to study the following case to develop a context of their work. They critically evaluate the context in relation to their learning from the course and prepare a professionally formatted well researched business case report that demonstrates the above learning outcomes.

Students are required to go beyond the scope of the context of the case and use information from various reviewed sources to demonstrate their understanding of theories and scopes of application of those theories. Students should adequately reference the sources of their information using APA referencing style to avoid plagiarism.

Assessment outline

The written report will have a word limit of 2000 words. Students name and student ID number must be included on the cover page. The final written report will need to be uploaded to the Turnitin website, and a copy submitted via email to the lecturer.

Due date: The first report is due on the second day of contact, 5 weeks from the start of the paper. This is to ensure that you have sufficient time to complete the second report on time. Therefore, if your second day of contact is a Tuesday. Then you report is due by midnight on Tuesday. If you second day of contact is a Friday, then your report is due by midnight on Friday.

Scenario:

The Saratoga Supply company Needs a Strategy

The Saratoga Supply Company is a distributor of a wide variety of industrial supplies to small-and-medium-size companies, as well as schools, hospitals, and government agencies. The wide range of supplies number in thousands including paper clips, copying paper, office furniture, desktop computers, pencil sharpeners, paper towels, and cleaning solvents. Saratoga Supply uses state-of-the art information technology for purchasing, selling, and delivering products.

Although the company has been in business for sixty years, CEO Wes is worried about the future of Saratoga Supply. In consultation with CFO, Darleen, and head of sales, Gary, Wes notices a disturbing and steady decline in sales for almost all the products the company supplies. Wes agrees with Darleen that the downward trend is sales is accelerating (sales are decelerating) at an unhealthy rate. He also agrees with Gary’s analysis that too many customers are now ordering directly from manufacturers through online sales. In the past, most manufacturers did not want to bother with small sales to individual companies. But with e-commerce, sales can be implemented more readily without going through intermediaries such as Saratoga Supply Company.

With a concerned look on his face, Wes says to Darleen and Gary, “We need to develop a business strategy to prevent going out of business. Maybe we should meet for an all-day session real soon. “

Source: DuBrin, A. J. (2016). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Cengage Learning. p. 443.  

Specific requirements:

Critically considering the above situation, you are to develop a report for Wes with the following specific requirements:

1. Based on your understanding of strategic leadership determine at least 3 strategic objectives for the Saratoga Supply Company and recommend how leadership could be applied to at least 3 different functional areas in terms of operations management, accounting, sales and marketing, human resources and risk management. That your recommendation will lead to a more successful direction for the company.
2. Evaluate the leadership styles required to achieve a high level of employee engagement with the chosen strategic direction and justify your choice. In your evaluation, you need to compare and contrast various leadership styles that are effective in the chosen context.  
3. Based on your understanding of Leadership theory, determine the key roles at various levels of management of an organisation to help improve employee engagement. Outline the core competencies of effective leadership and how they can improve attitudinal and behavioral traits across the organisation.

1. Students are further required to demonstrate their People Skills, Cognitive Skills and Affective Skills through professionally structuring the report for the CEO of the organisation, evidencing research thoroughness and making good judgements based on the scenario.

 

Pass Criteria

Students are required to demonstrate competency in all the GPOs being assessed in this assessment instrument and receive a ‘Competent’ (‘C’) grade. Students will be given a total of two re-sits for each assessment to demonstrate their competency for each GPO being assessed. Students that have not met a specific GPO requirement will be required to resit assessment for that specific GPO assessment tasks only. Students that fail to achieve a ‘Competent’ (‘C’) grade in a GPO at the end of the three attempts will receive a ‘Not Yet Competent’ (‘NYC’) grade.

Plagiarism policy

Premier Institute of Education maintains a zero tolerance on plagiarism. Students’ works are checked against databases available from various sources and no copying without proper acknowledgement of the sources are allowed. Failure to maintain the originality of your work may not only result in ‘Not Yet Competent’ (‘NYC’) grade in your current work but also may lead to further disciplinary actions including expulsion from the programme. So, do not plagiarise.

Judgement criteria:

Assessment task	Judgment criteria	Competent (C)	Further work required	Comments
Based on your understanding of strategic leadership determine at least 3 strategic objectives for the Saratoga Supply Company and recommend how leadership could be applied to at least 3 different functional areas in terms of operations management, accounting, sales and marketing, human resources and risk management. That your recommendation will lead to a more successful direction for the company.	Student answer may vary but students should be able to outline at least 3 different strategic objectives and apply their understanding to 3 different functional areas (operations management, accounting, sales and marketing, human resources and risk management). Students should be able to evaluate and judge at least three different strategies from below:   Differentiation Cost Leadership Focus/Niche High Quality Imitation Strategic Alliances Growth Through Acquisition High Speed & First-Mover Product & Global Diversification Sticking to Core Competencies Brand Leadership Focus on Environmental Sustainability Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Hiring Talented People   Students must be able to justify a strategic direction and demonstrate the implications in functional areas. Students will identify changes in each functional area.
Evaluate the leadership styles required to achieve a high level of employee engagement with the chosen strategic direction and justify your choice. In your evaluation, you need to compare and contrast various leadership styles that are effective in the chosen context.	Students demonstrate understanding of various leadership styles, participative leadership, autocratic leadership etc. Students should justify best fit for the strategic choice to a given situation.
Based on your understanding of Leadership theory, determine the key roles at various levels of management of an organisation to help improve employee engagement. Outline the core competencies of effective leadership and how they can improve attitudinal and behavioral traits across the organisation.	Students demonstrate a deep understanding of leadership behavior by applying the framework in developing strategies for employee engagement. Students relate effective leadership styles for each strategy.
Students are further required to demonstrate their People Skills, Cognitive Skills and Affective Skills through professionally structuring the report for the CEO of the organisation, evidencing research thoroughness and making good judgements based on the scenario.	Professional formatting and business language use. Evidences of thorough research by including relevant theories in justifying choices. Evidences of analytical and problem-solving capabilities through right choices in the given context.