The Role of the Leader In the past weeks, students have learned about leaders and leadership.  Leaders are social architects who design an organizational environment that encourages a desired range of social behaviors in an effort to meet the organizational goals set forth.  Social architects create vision and strategic direction, shape culture and values and lead change.

Required Elements to include in Paper #1:

In this assessment, you will act as Joseph Dunn, the leader of Dunn’s Ski Emporium.  You want to purchase The Deli, so there is a lot of work to do before entering into the possible addition of a business you know nothing about.  As Dunn, you will develop a leadership plan (not a business plan) writing from a leader’s perspective.  So, you ask, what it means to write from a leader’s perspective?

Writing from the leader’s perspective means you will approach Dunn’s vision through the people centric viewpoint of the leader. You are focused on how the two businesses will meet the vision through the decision making flow and grouping of people within the organizations.  How do you best use the people to meet your vision?  Even though it is tempting to write in the first person, a plan is written in the third person in which a story will unfold.  Dunn is essentially telling a story of how he is going to purchase the Deli and bring George and the business in as part of the Dunn Ski Emporium.  Dunn will need to figure out how he is going to combine these two businesses and use his leadership skills to do so.  Remember, you are writing from the leader’s perspective and are not solving problems but literally creating and developing an environment in which problems will be resolved by those who make the business run.

Dunn plans on designing an organizational structure that fulfills his vision, one that he believes George has for The Deli, and one that will fulfill its mission.  The organization must be open to change and possess a culture that empowers its employees to follow the vision created.  Like all good social architects, the building must start with a design that suites the purpose of the business and seeks to make it the best building for the job. The entire paper is the plan.  Students are expected to be creative but realistic in developing pieces of the plan.  For example, feel free to assign names and roles to the people in the business.  In being creative students may not change the facts in the plan. Dunn will provide the plan to George Atkins once Dunn sits down with him to begin negotiations, so the plan must be polished.  Also to make sure questions can easily be addressed, Dunn is going to write in the active voice and support the reasoning behind his ideas.  Dunn wants to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the leadership material, so a wide range of the readings will appear in the plan