- At the start of your assessment, you are encouraged to plan your work with your assessor and where appropriate agree milestones so that they can help you monitor your progress.
- Refer to the indicative content in the unit to guide and support your evidence.
- Pay attention to how your evidence is presented.
- Ensure that the evidence generated for this assessment remains your own work.
- Completing and acting on formative feedback from your assessor.
- Reflecting on your own experiences of learning opportunities and continuous professional development.
- Reading the CIPD Insight, Fact Sheets and related online material on these topics as well as key research authors on the subject.
You are asked by your Senior Management Team (SMT) to draft a briefing paper for them about leadership and management development in your own organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar). You will be evaluating what currently happens, making recommendations for improvement and justifying these. Your briefing paper needs to be objective and evidence-based, drawing on your own organisational knowledge and observations, as well as authoritative published sources.
At an initial meeting with your SMT you were asked to structure your paper around the following ten specific questions. Provide answers to each of these, aiming in each case to do so in around 390 words so that the total length of your assessment is 3900 words in length (+ /- 10% excluding references). You should answer each of the questions as fully as possible and you should take care to justify all the points you make.
Task
Question 1 (AC 1.1)
Explain how recent, current and potential future trends in your industry`s business environment are combining to underpin the case for a review of current leadership and management development activities or programmes. Illustrate your answer with specific examples.
Question 2 (AC 1.2)
Explain the meanings of ‘leadership development’ and ‘management development’ making a clear distinction between these two functions
Question 3 (AC 1.3)
Drawing on published models of contrasting leadership and management styles, explain the prevalent current approach in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar).
Question 4 (AC 1.4)
Compare the knowledge, skills and behaviours of leaders and managers in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar) and identify the areas they most need to improve in. Justify your answer.
Question 5 (AC 2.1)
Drawing on your wider reading, identify two different ways in which the people management team in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar) could support established leadership and management practices and programmes.
Question 6 (AC 2.2)
Drawing on your wider reading evaluate two different approaches to leadership and management development that you would like to see adopted or further developed in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar). Justify your answer.
Question 7 (AC 2.3)
Discuss your organisation`s (or an organisation with which you are familiar) current approaches to leadership and management development in terms of their effectiveness in consistently meeting core equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) objectives. Justify your answer.
Question 8 (AC 3.1)
Identify two stakeholders and explain their involvement in leadership and management development initiatives in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar)
Question 9 (AC 3.2)
Evaluate the extent and nature of the methods used by your own organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar) to evaluate the impact of its leadership and management development activity. Drawing on your reading explain how this might be improved. Justify your answer.
Question 10 (AC 3.3)
Assess two specific business benefits that can accrue to organisations which invest in first-rate, up-to-date, evidence-led leadership and management development programmes.