Final leadership paper

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Spring 2020 Creating You/LEAP Final Leadership Paper Assignment:

Your Development as an Entrepreneurial Leader

Assignment Overview

Deadline: Friday, April 17th by 5pm. This paper will be worth 50% of your Creating You

course grade and 15% of your LEAP course grade.

This year in LEAP and Creating You we have explored a variety of frameworks to help you

understand how you work with and through people and how you are learning to lead others.

After graduation, we hope you will use your knowledge to work more effectively as an

entrepreneurial leader as you influence individuals, teams, and organizations to pursue new

opportunities in an ethical manner.

The purpose of this assignment is to provide you with an opportunity to reflect on what

you have learned over this year about how you lead and influence others and the

implications this has for your development as an entrepreneurial leader. Specifically, you

are asked to 1) identify 3 experiences that impacted you the most with regards to your

leadership development during the MSEL program; 2) analyze each experience relative to

your own leadership using 2-3 course concepts, and 3) identify what you have learned from

these experiences and will carry forward in your work after Babson.

Assignment Development

The following questions are designed to prompt your thinking and help you to identify the

3 experiences you want to write about.

 Given your personal style and propensities and the type of leader you aspire to be in

the future, what experiences have caused the greatest CHALLENGE for you as a

leader this year and why? Examples of challenges might include trying to influence

or work with another team member, dealing with cultural or identity differences,

managing a conflict with another individual or group, giving or responding to critical

pinup performance feedback, getting support for a new idea or an approach to

solving a problem, etc. In regards to this challenge, what did you do and why was

your approach to leading not as successful as you would have liked? The challenges

may relate to your LEAP team, your experience in Chile, China, Tanzania, Israel,

Lowell, a learning group, career exploration, etc.

 Given your personal style and propensities and the type of leader you aspire to be in

the future, what experiences have been the greatest SUCCESSES for you as a

leader this year and why? What did you do and why was your approach to leading

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successful in that situation? Similar to your challenges, the successes may relate

to your LEAP team, your experience in other countries or cities, a learning group,

career exploration, etc.

 Reflect on a moment(s) in the MSEL program when you were most SURPRISED or

HAD YOUR PRIOR BELIEFS UPENDED. This may relate to how you work with other

people, how you work within certain cultures or organizational contexts, or how you

worked in a highly unstructured learning context. Consider what you learned as a

result and why it is important for your growth as a leader. You might want to

mention briefly what in your background had led you to the beliefs that have been

changed.

 Reflect on whether there was an exercise or activity from the MSEL program that

challenged you to think differently about how you work with others or gave you

valuable insight into your own behavior with others. Consider what you learned as a

result and why it is important for your growth as a leader.

Remember these questions are designed to generate thought, not be answered. You do

not need to choose an experience for each type of question, and can have multiple

experiences associated with the same theme (e.g., challenges, successes, surprises,

etc.).

Your overarching goal is to create an analysis that focuses on YOU and YOUR

development as a leader. In your analysis, you want to use concepts and ideas that

have come up in the readings and in class discussions when these are helpful to

organize and support your analysis. Feel free, if you wish, to supplement with any

outside readings you find particularly helpful.

Grading Criteria

You will be evaluated on the clarity and depth with which you critically analyze your

current and future development as an entrepreneurial leader. Because this paper can take

diverse directions, it is important to include an introductory paragraph that explains what

will be the focus of your analysis of your leadership.

The grading criteria are:

1. Analysis is insightful and effectively uses appropriate LEAP and/or Creating You

course content and other frames to understanding the 3 experiences you are

analyzing. A strong analysis will provide 1) clear, objective data from the

experience to support your points and 2) explain the why and how of this data using

2-3 conceptual frameworks. Your analysis should center on your leadership which

means looking at how you work WITH and THROUGH others and try to

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INFLUENCE others. The analysis section is the most important component

relative to your final grade.

2. Learning Agenda focusing on what you have learned from analyzing these

experiences that translates into clear, specific actions you can take to continue to

develop as a leader. Strong action steps will connect to the specific work situation

you expect (or desire) to find yourself in after graduation. Think about what

actions you will take when you enter your job upon graduation to be effective at

working with and through others and influencing others.

3. Organization and Writing. Effective written communication is important to your

current and future leadership. Your paper should be well-written and well-

organized so that your ideas are presented clearly and concisely. Pay attention to

introductory paragraphs, transitions, and developing a thesis statement. Finally,

spelling, grammar, punctuation, and referencing should be professional. Please get

support from the Writing Center to further assist you if needed.

Paper Submission:

Your paper should be 5 pages maximum (not including cover page or exhibits). You may

include as many exhibits that are relevant to support your analysis and are mentioned in

your paper. Careful, sufficient, appropriate and strategic use of exhibits is often a critical

success factor for these papers.

Please format your paper using double-spacing, 12 point font Times New Roman, 1

inch margins and page numbers.

The paper should be submitted electronically on Canvas as a Word document NOT a pdf

and the submission Word document file should be titled “Lastname_leadership paper.”

There is a submission link in the Session Work folder of your LEAP class. The deadline for

submission is Friday April 17th at 5pm. We will deduct 1/3 of a grade for each hour that

the paper is late.

In completing this assignment, all students are expected to fully abide by the Babson

Academic Integrity Policy. Submit only your own work.

Please speak with your Creating You faculty member for any questions about this

assignment.