Are leaders born or made?
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August 5, 2017Pennsylvania was the leader in sentencing and correctional reform in the early history of the United States. Discuss what groups were associated with this reform.
August 5, 2017Background ~ 1
Your objective/goal in this assignment is to demonstrate to the professor that you have read and made an attempt to understand, comprehend, and master the various concepts of leadership as presented in Online Educational Resources (OER) up to this point in the course.
In grading an assignment, the challenge for the professor is to weigh content and style/format. As stated in NEWS, UMUC places a lot of emphasis on APA format — that is to say style/format.
Having said that, let me make a few comments from a purely self-interest perspective. After teaching this course a couple of times and grading the associated papers, two things became apparent: 1) Many of my comments referred to APA style (I have a list of the most common comments so that I only have to copy and paste); and 2) the more time I spent grading a paper, the worse the grade. In one of the Discussions I referred you to the two papers, “Writing Papers That Are Easy to Grade” and “Making an A.” I am attaching them again with this guideline. This is what your paper should look like!
At the end of this guideline is an Abbreviated Grading Rubric. Pay particular attention to the checklist! When I grade papers I paste a copy of this rubric as page #1.
Background ~ 2
The readings point out that there are many definitions to leadership, and describes several “approaches” or “theories,” among them being traits (“Great Man Theory), skills, contingency/situational, path-goal, servant, transformational, etc.
For this assignment prepare a 4-6 page paper addressing the question “Are leaders born or made?” For what it’s worth, here are some “talking points” which you may or may not choose to consider:
- What is leadership?
- Is leadership a trait or a process?
- Are there similarities between leaders?
- Examples of “born” leaders or individuals who became leaders because of
circumstances.
- Do leaders have certain skills? Can they be learned?
- Is it possible to identify certain characteristics of an individual and then match
them to a leadership position?
Again, these are “talking points.” It is not necessary or possible to address each one in a 4-6 page paper.
Description
Submit a paper of 4-6 double spaced pages (not including title page, abstract, and references) based on the topic of leadership. Your paper is to follow APA format and guidelines. Pay particular attention to the Discussion topic based on the paper titled “Papers That Are Easy to Grade” (Sharp, 2013). As described below, include an outline in an Appendix at the end of the paper.
Outline
It’s an old cliché, but you wouldn’t start a cross-country trip without a map — OK, a GPS; nor should you start a paper without an outline. Develop an outline and include it in an appendix at the end of your paper. Theoretically your headings could serve as an outline. For a paper of this scope you probably won’t need headings other than Levels 1, 2 & 3. In particular, use the table below for an outline; copy it and paste it as an appendix and the last page of your paper. This outline is to consist of your topic sentence or thesis statement which should be the first sentence of your paper, and 2 – 5 points which should be the Level 2 Headings of your paper. Refer to APA Guidelines and “Writing Papers That Are Easy To Grade” (Sharp, 2013) for guidance on headings.
| Appendix: Outline |
| Topic sentence, aka thesis statement
Note: Normally this should be the first sentence of your paper. However, some authorities, such as the UMUC Writing Center, will say it can be — repeat, can be — the last sentence of the first paragraph. This takes skillful writing. Regardless, the first sentence of your paper is the most important, and for this paper, it should be your topic sentence/thesis statement, and should be your first sentence.
|
| What is your 1st Level 2 Heading?
What is the 1st sentence following this heading?
(Refer to APA Guidelines or “Writing Papers That Are Easy to Grade” for guidance on headings): |
| What is your 2nd Level 2 Heading?
What is the 1st sentence following this heading? |
| What is your 3rd Level 2 Heading?
What is the 1st sentence following this heading? |
| Use other headings as necessary
|
Learning Outcomes
- identify an issue and formulate a research topic that can be adequately covered in the required space
- identify, examine and evaluate various aspects of leadership
- demonstrate competence in using APA format, especially regarding citations and references.
Presentation
- APA format (title page, abstract, text, citations, outline, and references). This was a major feature of MGMT 610, so you should be competent in APA. You may want to refer to the paper in Discussions, “Writing Papers That Are Easy to Grade”
- Submit as a .doc or .docx; No .pdf
- 1” margins on all sides
- Times New Roman, 12 point font
- Double spacing
- Avoid use of 1st person (I, we, our)
- 4-6 pages
- Include a simple outline as the last page. See above format.
- Note: Wikipedia is not an acceptable reference
- Give credit where credit is due. It is easy to plagiarize unintentionally. If you say things like:
- all leaders must be resilient
- discrimination against women is the very worst kind
- genes are what determine behavior
Then you have made a claim and you must provide a reference to support it.
