LD7162 Assignment Sample – Research Methods for Professional Practice 2022
Part 1: Reflection CPD
Synopsis of the past achievement
Being in the management of a large-cap organization is among the top properties of business students and similarly, I also aimed to start my career as a management trainee. In the course of my academic life, I have participated in multiple events and have served multiple organizations as a management trainee even though for a shorter span.
I have multiple achievements and accentuated appreciation with immediate supervisors and even higher authority for exceptional accomplishments of the job delegated. As I was very much enthusiastic in marketing and PR building I usually used to demonstrate excellent customer service skills, helped my immediate teammate to achieve their sales goals.
I act as a management trainee in a UK-based renowned hotel chain where a guest was a complaint about the check-in facilities as he had to wait for longer to have a room assigned which irritated him leading him to shout at the corridors.
I believe, having a perfect blend of eloquence and empathy, I managed to ease the guests; this led me to have appreciation from hierarchy and got rewarded. Similarly, there were multiple socio-cultural events arranged by our university council and there were multiple high-value guests and certain public speakers were to be featured. I was chosen to send invitations and communicate with all guests and take care of them due to my potential management quality.
Apart from a small extent of miscommunication, I along with my 4 other team members have successfully executed the given tasks that led us to appreciation from principles. I also had the opportunity associated with the digital marketing teams in an SME retail brand from 7 days of internship where I imparted qualitative insights of customer control and accentuated cross-selling of products three times which I believe was an achievement.
However, I have faced some difficulty working in a team and forming greater bonds with team members, in the absence of which I would have been able to accentuate better achievements in the past.
Current experience
I am still in my academics and have to take part in team presentations, host events with teams, attend seminars, and take short-term internships in brands our university arranges for from time to time. Two weeks back, I along with my team members had to execute a detailed marketing plan for a hypothetical business launching a new product in a new market.
I experienced how different team members impart qualitative insights of the nuances that would have been taken into consideration helping brands gain traction right from the day of product launches. As the days pass by I have been continuing to be assigned multiple programs or assignments to execute solely or with team members of a minimum of 4 individuals.
As I approach to execute assignments for individuals, I experience a lack of resources, qualitative advice which could have been gained had I been assigned other members with me. Indecisiveness is a prime setback I perceive having however when I meant to work within a team, conflicts, contrasts in opinion are some of the frequent phenomena that I am less likely to resist.
Hence conflict resolution I felt is an exponential attribute of a potential leader that needs to be developed over time. In the preparation of a classroom group presentation I observed members have different ways of accomplishing presentations, they are having a different set of priorities, properties to execute things differently.
However being a team leader I experience the lack of ability to streamline their objectives, hence I realize I would need to be more detail-oriented and skills of persuading people. Hence interpersonal skills need to be effectively implemented to influence people in streamlining their priorities and by developing synergies we would exhibit a better congruence and resonance in executing jobs with utmost precisions (Okoro et al. 2017).
Communication skills are the most crucial leadership element and spines of success in every event. No amount of investment would help gain the resonance unless internal communication is bolstered. I have witnessed team members often resist working harder and going the extra mile if they are not pushed or the qualitative views are not effectively communicated to them.
Hence multidisciplinary communication is exponential in keeping teammates motivated as it indirectly helps people to be self-driven to harness their given tasks in a smarter way (Murtazaeva, 2021). I experienced the way brands are emphasizing technology-driven communication settings to help people be more accessible regardless of their designation.
Detailed plan
| Areas to be developed | Strategies of development | Timeline | Measurements |
| Decision-making skills | ● Reframing the problems and setting back up tend to be the best way for forwarding movement.
● Practicing evidence-based decision-making. ● Critically analyzing the probability of consequence. ● Setting up deadlines to make certain decisions. |
March 2022 | As influenced by Bak et al. (2019), I will start to make better decisions whether I am accomplishing given tasks alone or assigned to a group to work as a team. My higher authority would start to depend on me more and extend an authority to allow me to shape my responsibility with minimal intervention and external intervention. |
| Conflict resolution | ● Promotion of effective communication and learning of the art of emotional intelligence.
● Learning to manage stress for yourself and the team members as well. ● The effort to build a harmonious relationship and let people learn the art of extending compliments |
July 2022 | It will start to manifest that people in my team are obliged to get involved in constructive conflicts and people have a great interpersonal relationship and have a learning attitude where there is no place for egoism. |
| Problem-solving skills | ● Practicing to remain focused on resolution rather than problems.
● Clear definition and identification of the issues. ● Critically understand the validity of individual’s priority and its coherence in the success of teamwork or projects. |
August 2022 | Problems are inescapable and I will start to develop a learning attitude from every problem I encounter from not getting overwhelmed or dominated by this. Showing critical investigation skills I would start to make possibly authenticated resolutions of each of the obstacles taking others’ opinions, views, and preferences into consideration. |
Table 1: Plan for career development
(Source: Created by the learner)
Part 2: Logbook
| Skills learnt | Action taken to learn | Time |
| 1. Verbal communication | Increased communication with friends and families. | 3 months |
| 2. Non-verbal communication | Writing on different topics. | 5 months |
| 3. Critical thinking | Taking part in different internship projects | 6 months |
| 4. Negotiation | Taking part in business simulation | 4 months |
| 5. Team management | Work as a team leader in different projects. | 7 months |
| 6. Leadership | Communicate with known business managers. | 7 months |
| 7. Time management | Making routine to conduct works. | 4 months |
| 8. Creativity | Consistently work on developing new things. | 9 months |
| 9. Ethics build up | Reading different business magazines. | 3 months |
| 10. Interpersonal skills | Increase participation in team work. | 6 months |
| 11. Problem solving | Communicate with team members to understand their requirements. | 11 months |
| 12. Analytical skills | Taking part in different analytical work to improve skills. | 10 months |
| 13. Stress management | Make a routine to separate personal and professional life. | 8 months |
| 14. Computer skills | Taking course of basic computer skills. | 6 months |
| 15. Linguistic skills | Learning new language that has demand in international market. | 12 months |
| 16. Design skills | Increasing involvement in different artistic work. | 1.5 years |
| 17. Presentation skills | Taking active part in project presentation in class. | 7 months |
| 18. IT skills | Taking course to learn basic IT skills. | 12 months |
| 19. Basic promotional skills | Internship projects to learn marketing. | 11 months |
| 20. Organisational skills | Make a to-do list to organise the work | 10 months |
(Source: Self-made)
Part 3: PROPOSAL
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Introduction
The modern corporate climate is undeniably more challenging, requiring project managers and project leaders to divulge a better competence and resonance to drive the project in the right direction to its ultimate quests. Manifestation of great leadership practices is greatly valued as thus chalks out strategies for organizations to sustain their edge over the overly saturated and competitive business market.
This section of the proposal would portray the quintessence of the problem and research background along with succinct research aims, objective scope and questions based upon which further research would be gravitating upon.
1.2 Background
Project management is a very familiar term in the business settings that means to successfully execute multiple prophets business tends to rely upon to bolster their financial abundance and operational periphery. A positive leadership performance accentuates successful execution of multiple projects contradictorily, lack of leadership, incoherent decisiveness is highly detrimental that would enfeeble projects sustainability and refute long term socio-financial stoutness of the organizations carrying out such projects (Lottholz and von Billerbeck, 2019).
Theoretically, there are multiple leadership styles and indeed it is highly implementable in the corporate realm that might vary across organizations. Nevertheless, leadership performance is steeply not based upon the level of agility leaders are to tactically accentuate but their innovation-intensive mindset that they materialize through their qualitative decisions from time to time (Eddy-Spicer et al. 2019).
Modern businesses are very particular about innovation inclusive mindsets of project managers, perceiving only innovation can help them hold the desired traction in an overly competitive business landscape. As influenced by Meng and Berger, (2019), however, mindless innovation jeopardizes the socio-economic embellishment of a business thus requiring leaders to act prudently and divulge creativity that is legitimate and result-oriented.
Leaders having years of leadership experience of taking market ups, down, chalking out possibly authentic contrivances managed to figure out accurate leadership attributes to be established, required innovation to be gravitated upon.
1.3 Problem Statement/Research Rationale
Effective leadership shortens the path of objective attainment, contradictorily ineffective leadership drastically procrastinates the process of achieving goals that organizations tend to set from time to time. Project leaders or managers often divulge dysfunctional leadership approaches or styles that ideally are not a good fit for the organization considering the difficulties or adversities or circumstances.
Statistics divulge that over 83% of the organizations feel the need for leadership development as they do not have one. 25% of the corporate implied only 10% of the critical leadership positions are fulfilled however there was a lack of talented successes that can take the positions with ease (forbes.com, 2019). Only 19% of the organizations admit they are having talented leaders and it’s surprising over 71% of the organizations believe they don’t have a proficient leader who can lead their organization from the front.
The majority of the so-called leaders found to have a lack of sense of direction and confrontation of perceptual difficulties tend to delimit their agility and mental resonance to a higher extent leading them to act imprudently. Often it happens due to cultural restriction, structural complexities, and disengagement of employees makes it harder for project managers or leaders to execute their responsibility as per their discretion (Ribeiro et al. 2018).
Hence the proposal would deploy scrutinize various practices, leadership contrivances, styles of the project manager or leaders. The effectiveness of the practices will also be enumerated in the context.
1.4 Research Aim
The proposal aims to scrutinize various leadership practices for project managers from different organizations and gauge their effectiveness in the context. Its secondary aim is to gauge the leadership contrivances or practices from a global viewpoint, the effectiveness of the new venture, and the development of a model that allows leadership to be more creative and effective in their journey will also be reviewed.
1.5 Research Objective
- To analyze existing leadership practices of project managers in various organizations
- To critically explore leadership contributes in global settings
- To enumerate comparative analysis of management and leadership
- To evaluate the new ventures of leadership practice along with its effectiveness
- To Chalk out a leadership model to positively frame the practice of leadership
1.6 Research Questions
- What are various leadership practices of project managers used in different organizations?
- What is coherence leadership practicing a global perspective?
- What would be the outcome of comparative leadership analysis of management and leadership?
- What are the new ventures of leadership practice along with its effectiveness?
- What would be the relevant leadership model allowing leaders to exercise new leadership exercises?
1.7 Research scope
The study will be covering leadership styles, approaches that are visible in various organizations, and their effectiveness considering the circumstances it has been being applied into. It would critically divulge the effectiveness of such management and leadership practices from a global point of view.
It would aspire to judge the efficiency of leadership practices and gauge if it’s a result of the organizational culture and structure, perhaps shaped leadership enactments and their skills, confidence, or resonance.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
Leadership refers to the ability of a person to influence and motivate a group of people. A leader always integrates their followers and leads them to achieve the desired goal. The term Project Managementis associated with the utilization of tools, methods, and knowledge in an appropriate way to complete a project. There are various steps of a project that are planned, organized, and implemented by a project manager in a specific technique.
To get a successful project it is highly needed to be managed by a good leader. In this study, the role and impact of leaders in project management have been desired. A most useful leadership theory has been included in this study, to explain the research ineffective form.
2.2 Conceptual framework
Figure 1: Conceptual
(Source: Self-made)
2.3 Concept of leadership in project management
A project is a vital and essential part of the business activities of an organization. It requires full dedication and concentration from its participants. Project managers and leaders play an important role in the success or failure of any project (Daniëls et al.2019).
They give a direction of the project to their team members and motivate them to complete the project effectively and efficiently on a given schedule. There are three major roles of leaders that help to complete a project with its team members are going to be explained as follows.
Planning
A project leader is a responsible person for planning the entire project. All the processes, costs, and schedules are plannedby leaders. It takes responsibility to include these elements in project planning to start and complete the project accordingly in a given time schedule.
Management
One of the major and vital duties of a project leader is to manage the entire project (Rudolph et al. 2018). They are in charge of team selection of the team, authorizing payment, and allocation of resources to regulate the project in a specified direction.
Team building
A project cannot be completed by an individual member. It needs team members to achieve the project efficiently in a given schedule. A leader is responsible to build a team and direct them to specific tasks that would be best suitable for them. They motivate everyone to play their particular role in the project that is assigned to them. Leadership skills help project less to build strong communications with their followers to flow information among them easily.
Decision making
Another major duty of project leaders is to make critical and valuable decisions during the task. They must have a broad perception behind any action that should be taken for approval of the project. Each step of the project should be watched thoroughly and any change during the phase must be done by making appropriate decisions by leaders.
2.4 Different factors affecting leadership in the management of a project
A Leader plays an important role to complete the project effectively. They are assigned to manage various steps of tasks and projects. They are responsible for the success or failure of any project (Mahmud, 2017). However, there are some other factors that affect leadership in managing any project. To get a successful project these factors must be taken into consideration are expressed in the following.
Leader
It is one of the most effective factors that affect leadership in managing a project. It is immensely important to have an idea about the strength, weaknesses, and capabilities of a leader by the organization. To lead a team, a leader must be influential and experienced to get the task successful.
Followers
They are part of a team that is involved in doing tasks by the instruction given by project leaders. They work individually but need proper communication and coordination with other members and their leaders (Ahmed and Anantatmula, 2017). They have common goals that drive them to achieve. A motivated and influenced follower is highly responsible for getting the desired task by the leader
Figure 2: Factors affecting leadership in the management of a project
Source: Influenced by (Mahmud, 2017)
Situation
Different processes of the project have different situations. Leadership skills help them to bring all the situations into a single situation that could handle all. A leader plays an important role to examine all the phases of a project and take important decisions to handle it. They must be proactive to take quick, appropriate, and suitable decisions that could make a project successful. Also, they must be prepared to resolve any type of conflict or issues that have a chance to occur during the process of the project.
Communication
Communication between leaders and followers immensely affects leadership in project management. It helps to exchange ideas and information between them. It creates a platform and makes trust and faith among them (Okoro et al. 2017). With the help of this factor, they are directed towards their specific task easily and boost confidence among followers regarding their ability and capacity.
2.5 Impact of effective leadership on project success
Effective leadership is highly valuable for the success of any project. A good leadership style is the success criteria of any project. Tactic, behavior, and emotional intelligence of project leaders affect the process of any project (Capaldo et al. 2021).
Their influence on team members is also a major factor for completing the project in an effective manner. An appropriate communication and leadership tool makes a platform to make easy about the pages of projects assigned to the team members. Below are some qualities of effective leadership that impact successful projects.
- The Flexible nature of leaders is a major factor that impacts effective leadership. To get a project successful, it is highly essential for leaders to be flexible in nature. They must be adaptable to change any necessary elements or requirements that should be taken for change to make the project successful (Cleveland and Cleveland, 2020).
- Communication skills should be strong and effective ineffective leadership. It helps to build trust among leaders and followers and active the project in desired time and specified direction.
- Team player skills must be developed among leaders to achieve the project in the desired way. It helps to manage team members and motivate them to complete their allocated tasks in a defined way.
These above-mentioned leadership qualities are immensely beneficial for getting an effective leadership technique. They are helpful for identifying the goals, uncertainty, and mechanism involved in the project (Okoro et al. 2017). By this technique, various phases of the project can be organized and important detection could be made by the leaders in a more easy way.
Followers are influenced and boosted for their specific roles and they remain active and effective during their tasks. By getting effective leadership a strong trust and faith are built among leaders and followers and they find it comfortable to exchange their ideas and thoughts with each other. Therefore, these factors have a great influence on making a project successful by having Effective leadership.
2.6 Behavioural theory to understand traits and behaviour of the leaders
Leadership theory helps to explain the process that would make a person a leader. It pays attention to the behavior, skills, and traits of people that could be adopted by then to gain leadership qualities. A good leader possesses traits like strong ethics and values, organizing skills, and efficient learning qualities.
These must be built and developed to become a powerful and effective leader. There are dozens of Leadership theories that assist people to become business leaders in the following study, one of the most important and standard Leadership theories named Behavioral theory has been described as follows.
Behavioral theory
The Behavioral theory focuses on behaviors and traits of leaders that should be possessed by individuals to become leaders (Ketprapakorn and Kantabutra, 2019). It believes that leaders are not born and their qualities can be built by learning and practice activities. Action needs to be taken by individuals by viewing the style and techniques of good leaders.
According to this theory, good leadership qualities can be developed by focusing on the traits and actions of effective leaders of the world. This Theory helps learners to identify the action and behavior that is most effective and suitable to become a good leader. It is fully based on flexibility and adaptation process according to specific situations. However, it doesn’t explain the process of behaviour to differentiate.
2.7 Literature gap
This study has highlighted the idea of leadership and project management. It also explained leadership theory and described one of them named Behavioral theory. However, it could not explain the advantages and disadvantages of this theory in detail.
Also, the concept of modern leadership theory has not been expressed in this section of the study. Hence, it requires further research to understand the given research topic in a more specific way.
2.8 Summary
This study is going to summarise that all the essential points regarding leadership and project management have been highlighted. In this section ideas about leadership in project management have been explained. Major factors affecting leadership in the management of a project have been defined in this part.
Also, the Impact of effective leadership on project success has been included in this study. Further, the concept of Leadership theory named Behavioral theoryand its importance has been mentioned in this part of the literature.
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
The constituents of research methodology accentuate the framework on the way whole research would be gravitating upon. This section of the study would be featuring research philosophy, design, approaches alongside succinct data collection methods upon which the research will be established. The entire research will be conducted maintaining the ideology of research ethical consideration discussed below.
3.2 Research Philosophy, Design, and approach
The research will be undertaken engaging positivism philosophy as it accentuates data value freedom, ability to show a pattern or trends. Since the research is going to accommodate quantifiable research, undertaking such a positivist physiological model would help research better scrutinize data and come to possibly authentic conclusions (Alharahsheh and Pius, 2020).
Since it can generalize findings, ideally the outcome would divulge better social acceptability. As influenced by Penuel et al. (2020), a descriptive study is fairly cheap and convenient to conduct and allows researchers to have the opportunity to accommodate both qualitative and quantifiable research in the context.
Since the research is going to cover both primary and secondary data collection methods, the descriptive design will be highly compatible in the context. A deductive approach will be undertaken as a major constituent of the research methodological framework. Since it can effectively explain causal relationships between multiple nuances and concepts and measures the concept quantifiably it seems highly compatible with the research setting considering the aim the research is going to achieve (Mahmudin et al. 2020).
3.3 Data collection method
The research will be featured with both qualitative and quantitative research. A small Scale comprehensive survey will be undertaken where certain quantifiable close-ended questions will be asked to the potential research participants. On the other hand, a comprehensive secondary qualitative archival study will be undertaken where data from multiple web resources, news articles, magazines, and scholarly resources will be accumulated for further investigation.
3.4 Data collection tools and techniques
The collected data will be portrayed in an organized manner to help research scrutinize and hop around multifaceted data sets. The accumulated data will be portrayed in the form of a diagram, histogram, graphical presentation, pivot, and statistical chart format.
In case of discussion, the variables, concepts, and empirical evidence will be discussed in the form of triangulation to portray a holistic and possibly accurate conclusion in the context.
3.5 Sampling techniques
There will be a small-scale comprehensive survey and its participants will be selected by random sampling. Such sampling would help in deriving a less biased response and it is fairly easy as well as cheap to conduct. Since it offers a chance of conducting rigorous data analysis having less risk to accommodate an error the result turns out to be authentic (Etikan and Bala, 2017).
3.6 Ethical consideration
The research will be conducted keeping ethical considerations in mind. Since there will be a survey to be conducted, participants will further be communicated receiving an affirmation from them. No one will be instigated with a reward to mould their answer unjustly.
As per the data protection policies of UK 2018, their personal delicate information will be kept with utmost secrecy (Keller, 2018). Research participants will have the privilege to participate in the survey staging at the comfort of their home and quit it anytime they want.
3.7 Research Timeline
Figure 3: Gantt chart
(Source: Created by the learner)
3.8 Summary
Research methodology is the ideal synopsis on how possibly the research would be gravitating upon. The research would be featuring descriptive research design, positivism philosophy, and deductive approach for their better applicability on the specific context over counter components.
A primary survey will be conducted alongside a secondary archival study. By maintaining the ethical consideration the survey will be undertaken to ensure all participant’s data will be kept secret.
References
Journals (part 1)
Bak, O., Jordan, C. and Midgley, J., 2019. The adoption of soft skills in supply chain and understanding their current role in supply chain management skills agenda: A UK perspective. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Murtazaeva, A., 2021. DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR MANAGEMENT STUDENTS. Mental Enlightenment Scientific-Methodological Journal, 2021(1), pp.111-120.
Okoro, E., Washington, M.C. and Thomas, O., 2017. The impact of interpersonal communication skills on organizational effectiveness and social self-efficacy: A synthesis. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 4(3), pp.28-32.
Journals (part 3)
Ahmed, R. and Anantatmula, V.S., 2017. Empirical study of project managers leadership competence and project performance. Engineering Management Journal, 29(3), pp.189-205.
Alharahsheh, H.H. and Pius, A., 2020. A review of key paradigms: Positivism VS interpretivism. Global Academic Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2(3), pp.39-43.
Capaldo, G., Capone, V., Babiak, J., Bajcar, B. and Kuchta, D., 2021. Efficacy Beliefs, Empowering Leadership, and Project Success in Public Research Centers: An Italian–Polish Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(13), p.6763.
Cleveland, S. and Cleveland, M., 2020. Leadership competencies for sustained project success. International Journal of Applied Management Theory and Research (IJAMTR), 2(1), pp.35-47.
Daniëls, E., Hondeghem, A. and Dochy, F., 2019. A review on leadership and leadership development in educational settings. Educational research review, 27, pp.110-125.
Eddy-Spicer, D., Bubb, S., Earley, P., Crawford, M. and James, C., 2019. Headteacher performance management in England: Balancing internal and external accountability through performance leadership. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 47(2), pp.170-188.
Etikan, I. and Bala, K., 2017. Sampling and sampling methods. Biometrics & Biostatistics International Journal, 5(6), p.00149.
Keller, D., 2018. The Right Tools: Europe’s Intermediary Liability Laws and the EU 2016 General Data Protection Regulation. Berkeley Tech. LJ, 33, p.287.
Ketprapakorn, N. and Kantabutra, S., 2019. Culture development for sustainable SMEs: Toward a behavioral theory. Sustainability, 11(9), p.2629.
Lottholz, P. and von Billerbeck, S., 2019. Senior Leadership Performance Management in International Organizations. Reading, UK: University of Reading.
Mahmud, S., 2017. Resilience and emotional intelligence: A focus on leadership at project management in construction sector of Bangladesh. International Journal on Leadership, 5(2), p.12.
Mahmudin, C., Sumarmo, U. and Kustiana, A., 2020. The Effect of Inductive-Deductive Approach on Students’ Mathematical Creative Thinking Ability and Self-Efficacy. (JIML) JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE MATHEMATICS LEARNING, 3(4), pp.215-226.
Meng, J. and Berger, B.K., 2019. The impact of organizational culture and leadership performance on PR professionals’ job satisfaction: Testing the joint mediating effects of engagement and trust. Public Relations Review, 45(1), pp.64-75.
Okoro, E., Washington, M.C. and Thomas, O., 2017. The impact of interpersonal communication skills on organizational effectiveness and social self-efficacy: A synthesis. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 4(3), pp.28-32.
Penuel, W.R., Farrell, C.C., Anderson, E.R., Coburn, C.E., Allen, A.R., Bohannon, A.X., Hopkins, M. and Brown, S., 2020. A Comparative, Descriptive Study of Three Research-Practice Partnerships: Goals, Activities, and Influence on District Policy, Practice, and Decision Making. Technical Report No. 4. National Center for Research in Policy and Practice.
Ribeiro, N., Yücel, İ. and Gomes, D., 2018. How transformational leadership predicts employees’ affective commitment and performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.
Rudolph, C.W., Rauvola, R.S. and Zacher, H., 2018. Leadership and generations at work: A critical review. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), pp.44-57.
Websites
Forbes.com, 2019, The Shocking Statistics Behind Uninspiring Leaders, Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joefolkman/2019/11/20/the-shocking-statistics-behind-uninspiring-leaders/?sh=1c1c4eb32b65 [Accessed on: 18th August 2021]
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