Assignment 2: LASA 1 Assignment—The Leader as a Strategist Report
For this assignment, you will choose an organization to analyze. This organization can be one you are personally familiar with, or one you have observed to be an effective organization, You now become a newly appointed senior leader in that organization.
As a new leader, you must prepare a report for the CEO that assesses the organization’s overall alignment between its vision, mission, values, and strategy. This report should consist of the following sections:
This includes assessing the organization’s strategy and market position. Use the framework implied in Michael Porter’s (1997) article “What is Strategy.” When describing the business strategy of your organization, consider the following questions:
A SWOT analysis is a strategy planning tool that examines both internal and external environments for factors and trends that should shape planning and operations over the next five years. Environmental factors internal to the company are classified as strengths (to be leveraged) or weaknesses (to be mitigated), while external factors are classified as either opportunities (to be pursued) or threats (to be monitored and responded to).
Some primer questions for the SWOT analysis include the following:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Useful opportunities can come from such things as the following:
o Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale
o Changes in government policy related to your field
o Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, and so on
o Local events
Threats
Include the following characteristics when analyzing the internal environment:
Include answers to the following:
o Describe the values and culture of your organization.
o What are the values of your organization?
o How are they reflected in the behaviors you see at work?
o Describe the behaviors in your organization.
o Are these behaviors consistent with the business strategy?
o Where do they conflict with the strategy?
o What new behaviors are required to align with the strategy?
o How might you and other leaders create new behaviors to support the strategy?
o What specific actions would you implement to communicate, motivate, model the way, coach, inspire the vision, challenge the process, and encourage the heart?
Your response to each part of the assignment should be approximately three pages.
Your final product will be in a word document and be approximately 6–8 pages in length and utilize 4–7 scholarly sources in your research. Your paper should be written in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrate ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources; and display accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
By Wednesday, September 20, 2017, deliver your assignment to the M3: Assignment 2 Dropbox.
Assignment Component Proficient Max Points
Content Knowledge: Understanding
Communicates understanding of the organization’s current vision, mission, and strategy. Response incorporates analysis and synthesis of central concepts of the assigned topic.
Response reflects understanding of the nature of the specific topic within the discipline and its applications in contemporary times.
Response provides necessary details and specific examples. / 80 pts.
Content Knowledge: Application Component 1
Communicates the ability to analyze the “strategic cascade” of the organization and complete a SWOT analysis. Response demonstrates a working command of the disciplinary content knowledge.
Response examines the specific issue within the context of the topic area using relevant details and examples.
Response analyzes the specific aspect of the issue to applicable areas within the discipline and their relevance to real world contexts.
Response is adequately supported by current and relevant literature. / 40 pts.
Content Knowledge: Application Component 2
Communicates the ability to summarize the internal environment, including the organization’s values and the key elements that influence the worker’s behavior. Response demonstrates a working command of the disciplinary content knowledge.
Response examines the specific issue within the context of the topic area using relevant details and examples.
Response analyzes the specific aspect of the issue to applicable areas within the discipline and their relevance to real world contexts.
Response is supported by current and relevant literature. / 40 pts.
Content Knowledge: Application Component 3
Communicates the ability to state the ability of the organization to implement the strategy. Response demonstrates a working command of the disciplinary content knowledge.
Response examines the specific issue within the context of the topic area using relevant details and examples.
Response analyzes the specific aspect of the issue to applicable areas within the discipline and their relevance to real world contexts.
Response is supported by current and relevant literature. /20 pts.
Written Communication/Personal Effectiveness
Conveys through written word understanding and application of the essential assignment components. Writing is concise and clear in content, language use, grammar, organization, and sentence structure.
Writing is free of major grammatical and usage errors. / 20 pts.
Total /200 pts