HRM09105 Leadership in Organisations Assessment Brief 2026 | ENU

HRM09105 Assessment Brief

Developing organisation skills, critical analysis and reflective skills and other employability skills are central to the assessment strategy of this Module.

In detail, students will continue to ‘learn how to learn’ through direction to other sources of information – they will learn how to seek out information, evaluate the validity, currency, quality and relevance of the information that they source from the Internet.   Specialist guest lecturers have been recorded to deliver ‘real world’ examples and – through these sessions – students will examine and debate current practice in leadership.

Students are required to submit two components, each carrying 45% of the total module mark.  (The remaining 10% is based on your performance in the end of Unit Tests)

 Component 1: A 10-minute recorded oral presentation via power-point to critically assess the efficacy of the academic concept of leadership levels within a live organisation. PowerPoint presentations are to be uploaded to turnitin submitted as a PowerPoint.pptx file by 23.59 on 28^th August 2026 UK time.   Please note: No video is required.

Component 2: A 2,000-word essay, which is a reflection on the module content to confirm understanding of what leadership is and why it is important, uploaded to turnitin by 23.59 on 28^th August 2026 UK time.

 Component 1

You are required to put together a 10-minute narrated presentation on power-point to answer the following question:

In his book Leadership in Organizations, Yukl (2013 & 2020) conceptualises leadership by organisational level.  These levels can be viewed as a hierarchy as depicted below:

With reference to each of these leadership levels, consider an organisation you have knowledge of and analyse how the leadership has responded to today’s turbulent environments.

In your answers, please provide a brief overview of the organisation you have chosen to provide context.

Notes on answering Component 1 well:

Presentation:

The Presentation of power-point is worth 10% of the total mark.  Please note the guidance below to score well.

1. You may like your opening slide to be a table of contents to provide a clear high-level overview of the presentation.
2. Use the introduction to summarise the question(s) you have been asked to consider and succinctly describe the content of the forthcoming presentation.
3. Keep your slides simple so that you can be understood by the listener
4. Finish your presentation with a conclusion that captures a summary of the main points and directly answer the question(s) asked.  There should be nothing new in the conclusion.
5. Check your spelling and basic grammar in your slides.

Referencing:

The referencing within your presentation is worth 10% of the total mark.

1. Please remember this is an academic piece of work, so you must consult academic text books to support your explanations and discussions of terms and concepts.  E.g. If you state that leadership has been researched for over one hundred years’ then you must provide evidence that backs up this claim, using intext citations (e.g. Northouse 2019).
2. Please use the APA7th referencing style that is clearly described in the guide that you can find on moodle.
3. There is no maximum number of academic sources you can use for your essay, but if you use none, then you will be failed.

Knowledge and understanding:

This area is worth 40% of the total essay mark, so please take note of the following:

1. Please consult academic textbooks to define and explain all the key concepts in the presentation.
2. Use intext citations to identify the source of your explanations, definitions, assertions, discussions, arguments etc
3. The important academic concepts for this presentation are listed below and need careful explaining and discussing using academic literature to demonstrate your knowledge:
   a. Yukl’s leadership matrix (e.g. what is it? What is its purpose?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a leadership matrix?  Are there any limitations to its application and use?  Has any other academic considered a leadership matrix to analyse different levels of leadership in an organisation?  (e.g. look at some of the listed books for the module – what do those authors say about leadership levels?  Similarities?  Differences?  etc)
   b. Environmental turbulence. What is it?  How is it defined?  What explanations can you find in the literature?
4. Can you find any examples to demonstrate your understanding? (You’ll find something in the newspapers almost on a daily basis about leadership levels)

Analysis

This area is worth 40% of the total essay mark and assesses how well you have answered the question.

1. Provide no more than 30 seconds to provide context on the organisation you have chosen
2. Describe the environmental turbulence. There are many examples you can consider e.g. you might refer to rising inflation: new environmental regulations or the arrival of AI or Covid-19, Wall street – It’s completely up to you
3. You must talk about each of the three leadership levels (organisation; group and dyadic) and discuss how each has responded to the environmental turbulence one by one.
4. Finally, consider how effective/helpful the leadership matrix itself is as a theory, when you use it for a real organisation responding to turbulence. You may like to talk about some of the weaknesses and strengths of the theory.  What do you think?  Is it good / helpful or does it have limitations?  If so what are they?
5. End with a succinct conclusion that summaries the main points in the presentation and directly answers the essay question(s). There must be nothing new introduced in your conclusion.

Suggested Structure for Your presentation:

Slide one – Introduction i.e. This is what I am going to tell you… (1 minute)

Provide an overview of the question(s) that have been asked and explain how the presentation ahead is structured to answer those questions

Slides 2/3 – demonstrates your knowledge and understanding – (4 minutes)

Construct a couple of slides to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the concepts.  i.e. the leadership matrix and environmental turbulence.  Remember to use intext citations to identify the academic source of your explanations; definitions; discussions; arguments and assertions.  Use a variety of academic textbooks to draw out key themes and any tensions

Slides 3/4 demonstrate your analysis (4 minutes)

Use your case study company to consider how the leadership matrix works in practice, with a separate discussion on how each of the three levels responded to the environmental turbulence.

• Begin with a brief overview of the organisation selected for analysis & some context highlighting the turbulence the company experienced.
• Then describe the turbulence experienced and the impact on the organisation
• Analyse the response at each of the three levels (was it what you expected?)

Slide 5/6 – Conclusion (1 minute).  This is what I have told you….  

In summary… (nothing new).

Acid test:  Should be able to understand fully from Introduction and Conclusion.

Slide 6/7 – Reference list

Some tips to recording your presentation

Here are some tips that will help you to produce a clear oral presentation:

• Write some notes, or a script. This will help you to create a clear and well-structured presentation that covers all the required information.
• Speak clearly and take care not to speak too quickly. You may need to speak more slowly that you would when talking to a friend.
• Record your presentation in a quiet location. Background noise can make the presentation difficult to hear; and if we can’t hear you, we have nothing to mark!
• Listen back to your presentation. I know that this can be an uncomfortable experience, but it is important to ensure that your presentation is clear.
• Make sure that what you say in the recording and what you present on your slides match up!

 Component 2

What is leadership?  In this 2000-word essay, and considering the Module, students will be asked to explore such areas as:  what does it mean to you; it is important; why and for what reason; and what is its purpose?

To answer the second component well, students are required to choose two leadership concepts

(i.e. theories) [for example: leadership traits; distributed leadership], and then drawing on work experience to date, provide examples of how these two concepts relate to the world of practice/work.  For students with limited or no work experience, then they may draw examples from the four guest lectures to explain the relationship of theory to practice.

Note: In your answer, it is essential that you draw on the relevant literature – both academic and practitioner – to support your work.

An excellent submission will show how the ‘theory explains practice’ and/or how ‘the practice of leadership compliments or supports the stated theory’.

Further guidance on writing this Reflective Essay will be offered by the Tutorial Team from week 8.

Early feedback to the students will be provided after the Case Study that will prepare them for the Reflective Essay component. Throughout, students will be encouraged to be innovative and to engage in deep learning around the module topic (s).

Notes on answering the second essay well:

Presentation:

The Presentation of the essay is worth 10% of the total mark.  Please note the guidance below to score well.

1. Begin with a table of contents to provide a clear high-level overview of the essay structure.
2. Use the introduction to provide a summary of the question(s) you have been asked to consider and provide a succinct summary of the forthcoming structure.
3. Avoid long paragraphs with multiple arguments and discussions. Keep your writing simple so that you can be understood by the reader and clearly label different sections of your essay
4. Finish with a conclusion that captures a summary of the main point within your essay and directly answers the question(s) asked. There should be nothing new in the conclusion.
5. Check your spelling and basic grammar are correct. If in doubt ask a friend to read your essay.
6. Ensure you write no more than 2,200 words and no fewer than 1800 words.

Referencing:

The referencing within your essay is worth 10% of the total mark.

1. This is an academic essay and you must consult academic text books to support your explanations and discussions of key terms and concepts. g. If you state that leadership has been researched for over one hundred years’ then you must provide evidence that backs up this claim, using intext citations (e.g. Northouse 2019).
2. Please use the APA7th referencing style that is clearly described in the guide that you can find on moodle.
3. There is no maximum number of academic sources you can use for your essay, but if you use none, then you will be failed.

Knowledge and understanding:

This area is worth 40% of the total essay mark, so please take note of the following:

1. Pick any two leadership concepts that have been covered on the module (e.g. you might choose autocratic leadership and democratic leadership)
2. Begin by using academic textbooks to define and explain the two concepts: e.g. what is autocratic leadership? Etc
3. Use academic textbooks to draw out core themes: g. How does autocratic leadership work?  How does it differ to other leadership styles?  What are its advantages and disadvantages?  Are there any limitations to its use?  Where does it work best?  Etc
4. Are there any examples you can use to demonstrate you understand how it works? (e.g. You may like to look at quality journals and newspapers)
5. Use intext citations to identify the source of your explanations, definitions, assertions, discussions, arguments etc

Analysis

This area is worth 40% of the total essay mark, and assesses how well you have answered the question.

The question asks you to consider any work experiences you may have had to analyse how the concepts you have chosen work in practice.  (Note if you have not had any work experiences, please look at the guest lecture videos and consider how the concepts you have chosen work in their world of work).

To score well here, you need to do the following:

1. Connect your concepts to your work experiences. g. you may have worked in a bar, and you may have seen your boss being autocratic in how he leads you or your work colleagues.  Write about the examples and then
2. Analyse how well the concept worked in practice. It’s useful here to have two sub-paragraph headings labelled ‘advantages’ and ‘disadvantages’, where you can state what worked well when the concept was used in practice, and what worked less well.  Finally,
3. State how well you thought the concept worked in practice. Were the academics right in what they write about?  Were there any observations you made that the academics may not have mentioned?  How important was the context?  Are there other times you have seen autocratic leadership working well?  Badly?  Were there any limitations with autocratic leadership in the bar?
4. End with a succinct conclusion that summaries the main points in your essay and then use your essay to answer the essay question(s). e. What do you now think leadership is?  Why is it important?  What is its purpose?  Remember, there is no right or wrong answers here.  The important point is that you formulate a view based on your thinking and analysis of concepts in practice.

Suggested Structure for Component 2

Introduction (10% – 200 words).  This is what I am going to tell you…

Provide an overview of the question(s) that have been asked e.g. The following essay considers how two leadership concepts work in practice using my own work experiences and then conclude what leadership means to me etc…  Then provide an indication how the essay is structured to answer those questions.  E.g. the essay will begin by considering (concept 1) and then (concept 2), before using the conclusion to answer what leadership means to me etc…

Body of Work (80% – 1600 words).  This is what I am telling you…  Written in the 3^rd person

Concept One.  (800 words)

• Explain, define and demonstrate your understanding and knowledge of concept 1 supported by the relevant literature (using intext citations to identify the source) and any examples to further demonstrate your understanding.
• Provide a brief overview of your work experience (or use a guest lecturer) and analyse how that concept works in practice.  Demonstrate your criticality by commenting on any strengths and weaknesses; advantages and disadvantages; limitations in how that theory worked in practice.

Concept Two.  (800 words)

• Repeat again for the second concept

Conclusion (10% – 200 words).  This is what I have told you….

Provide a succinct summary of your main discussion points, and then use it to answer the essay questions in the first or third person i.e. this is what leadership means to me; this is its purpose and this is why I think it is important …

Aggregate Marks

Marking Cycle

It is the intention of the Teaching Team that all worked will be marked within three working weeks.  The final agreed marks are available once the feedback from the external examiner is available.

Re-sit provision

Details on re-sit provision for both assessment components will be made available by the Module Leader.  But it is customary that all resits take place during Trimester Three (Summer 2027).

Academic integrity

Plagiarism and other forms of academic integrity are taken very seriously.  All such cases are dealt with by the Academic Integrity Panel and in line with School and University procedures.

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes for module:

Upon completion of this module you will be able to

LO1: Understand the different ways of defining and conceptualising leadership at the strategic, operational and tactical levels of analysis.

LO2: Review the different leadership theories (models, philosophies and styles) and understand the impact of leadership on followers, organisations and performance.

LO3: Review how leadership is interpreted and understood in practice.

LO4: Evaluate the interpretation of leadership in a practitioner environment.

LO5: Outline and examine critically the impact of internal and external influences on leadership practice in Industry 4.0.

Answer

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