Information Management for Organizational Effectiveness

Understanding Organizational Leadership

The purpose of this assignment is to reflect on your own perceived personal leadership styles and to decide if you learned anything about leadership from the movie we will watch together.

Fifteen percent of the grade for this class will come from group presntation and participation that displays your understanding of how leadership, culture (as expressed through memory), and ethics intersect.

But there will be two components

Leadership Styles
10 percent of the grade for this class will come from this
Task
Kurt Lewin has identified three leadership styles (other researchers have identified different taxonomies and types of leadership styles, but for this assignment we will use Lewin). The three styles are: authoritarian, participatory, and delegatory.
1. Authoritarian leaders prefer to make decisions themselves and may not consult others in deciding how to structure and organize the work of an organization.
2. Participative leaders tend to be more democratic, inviting the participation of organizational members in making decisions, but keeping control of the final decision process.
3. Delegative leaders tend to delegate decision making to others, allowing members to make decisions themselves and inviting participation in decision-making at all levels.
While we recognize that truly exceptional leaders may need to adjust their styles in different circumstances, most people may have a natural preference for one style or the other. So, each group will be ready to state ...
1. What type of leader would you most prefer to work for and why?
2. What type of leader are you most likely to be?
Condition
We will do this by groups in class on Monday, 16 November 2026. Present yourselves in class as if speaking with one group voice, but feel free to be individuals if need be.
Standard
An honest perspective that feels authentic will earn the full points

Leadership Lessons
07 percent of the grade for this class will come from this
Task
We will have all watched together in class an old movie that has a well deserved reputation as one of the best studies of leadership under conditions of great stress.
Discuss in a paragraph or two about whether or not anything you learned from 12 O'Clock High could add anything to your understanding of organizational leadership needs, or to your understanding of yourself.
Condition
This task should be done individually. A paragraph or two should suffice.
To accomplish this task, submit it as a submission for the 7th Discussion posting.
Standard
This is worth seven points and it should be easy to earn the full seven. However, if your response sound less like you and more like a generative AI created response, a score approaching zero is very likely to be awarded.