Analyse some contemporary writings relating to effective leadership in modern business organisations, or an individual organisation, and critically evaluate different strategies and approaches to leadership within a modern organisational context. Using your findings and conclusions as a model or benchmark, evaluate your own leadership style to ensure you can effect improvements in work performance both at an individual and at a company level. The purpose of this assignment is to give you the opportunity to critically review some current papers and writings as well as contemporary themes, on leadership. You will then identify some relevant issues that will enable you to put forward some ‘best practice’ models in contemporary organisations. You will use your findings to benchmark your expertise and capability and assess some learning goals and needs for yourself to ensure that you achieve your personal leadership goals – please do not devote more than 1000/1500 words to this latter section. You will identify key trends in academic and organisational thinking on effective leadership and then use these insights to derive conclusions about capabilities, In this paper you will, identify some key leadership issues for organisations in a diverse and complex business environment. You will find that there are changing interpretations and understandings about leadership in modern organisations. John Storey (2004) points out that these contrasting assumptions can be further analysed into differential assumptions about what specifically is ‘effective leadership’ This analysis will enable you to critically assess your own leadership development needs and propose a set of short and medium term actions that will improve your chances of achieving these goals. You may invite your employer to comment on any aspects of the assignment but there is no obligation for this to happen. The deadline for submission of this assignment will be at the end of the MBA programme. The learning outcomes covered focus on 4 and 5 as well as 2 and 3. Suggested Structure • Introduction and scene setting – clear indication of the content of the assignment. Overview of the topic and clarify terminology. Identify objectives and purpose clearly and set out what you will achieve. (10%) • Review of literature covering relevant past research, studies and articles from relevant books and journals. Also newspapers. Beware of the internet as there is a mass of inconsequential and repetitive information here but nevertheless there are some useful websites. Be critical of the literature and do not just report it (30%) • Use the boundaries and parameters identified relating to leadership theory to explain the processes relating to effective leadership in a modern organisation or organisations to understand performance and business growth. Draw on personal experiences, or case studies where suitable and use this data to justify, develop and analyse reflections sourced in your literature review (30%) • Use your personal reflections, case studies or other documented evidence relating to leadership to discuss, evaluate and identify models and theories of best practice relating to leadership effectiveness. Summarise and conclude this analysis (15%) • From these conceptualisations and conclusions on leadership derive a plan for your own leadership development. This should identify organisational context, perceived need, behavioural requirements and development methods to enable you as a leader to achieve excellence (15%)