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Chapter 01 - What Is Leadership Communication?
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The use of Mr. (Ms.) is for purposes of the case; it does not mean that Mr. Scalpel
does not know which you are.
Writing Assessment (continued)
Use of Grammar/Style Checkers
You may use the spelling checker for this portion of the assessments, but do not use the
Submitting the Assignment
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Oral Assessment
One of the best approaches to assessing students’ oral presentation ability is to have
them deliver a very short (2 – 3 minutes) impromptu speech that is recorded on video
Instructions for Impromptu Oral Assessment
1. When your turn comes, select a topic from the topic bag. Note: if your topic seems
completely impossible for you, you may select another one, but do so immediately.
You may present on either topic, but place the discarded one back in the bag.
2. You will have three minutes to prepare a 3-minute presentation on the topic.
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Topics for 3-Minute Impromptu Speeches
1. How did you make the decision to come to this college or university and seek the degree
you are pursuing?
2. What are the key goals you expect to achieve as a result of completing your degree?
6. Review the three key factors to consider in purchasing a new laptop computer.
7. Discuss the value or the dangers of Facebook or other similar programs in helping people
connect to each other.
8. Discuss something you wish you had learned in school but did not learn well enough.
11. Select a sport or other leisure activity and discuss its value.
12. Discuss a challenge you have faced and how it made you a better person.
13. What does it take to be a good leader?
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Assessment of Ability to Create Presentation Visuals
Today, students usually come into school with a basic understanding of how to use
PowerPoint, Keynote, or similar programs; however, if the instructor wants to assess their
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Introductory Visual Presentation Exercise
An Introduction to You in Three to Six Slides
This exercise calls on you to create a PowerPoint or other computer-supported presentation
of three to six slides that tells the class and your instructor a little about you. You must
include a title page and at least one graphic element (a photograph, illustration, chart,
spreadsheet, etc.) somewhere in your presentation. You may use a template or make a
Creating Your Presentation
You can use a variety of approaches to do this assignment. Perhaps you want to tell a story
or stories that illustrate who you are, or to give examples of how you work in teams, or to
tell about your accomplishments. You may want to take a lighter approach, using humor to
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Submitting the Assignment
Save your file with your last name and first initial and “about me” as the file name
______________________________________________________________
Application 1.2 – A Question of Ethics
For this application, it is best to allow the students some time in class to read and answer the
questions that follow each situation. Then, you might want to allow them to discuss their
answers within small groups.
1. You have to travel to New York for a conference. Your company will cover your food
expenses and has given you the option of taking a per diem of $75 a day or submitting
itemized receipts ($75 maximum per day). Since you know the cheap places to eat in
New York, you know that you will come out with money in your pocket if you take the
per diem, so you do. Ethical or not?
Most will consider this action ethical; however, some will not. On the conservative side and
2. Your close friend and colleague tells you that he/she is going to take the per diem and
pocket the extra money in the scenario in #1 above. What should you do, if anything?
Report him/her or not?
3. You are a researcher and prepare research reports for your company. The company has a
rotating work schedule, which allows you to work three days at the office and two at
home. Since you are a very fast worker, you are able to complete the research and write
the two required reports in three days at the office, so you regularly enjoy a four-day
weekend. Right or wrong?
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4. You regularly use the Internet to buy gifts and to shop. During the workday, you spend
your down time looking for good deals and doing your shopping while at work. Is this
ethical or not?
5. You have a friend who sends you political cartoons and jokes attacking political parties,
governments, and leaders through e-mail at work. You sometimes forward these on to
your friends. Right or wrong?
6. A good friend of yours has applied for a job at your company and has given your name
as a reference. Your friend has had problems at previous jobs with poor performance,
but you really like him and would find him fun to be around at work. Do you give
human resources a positive reference for your friend or not?
Dangerous situation. You would not want to risk your own reputation by providing a
7. Your company policy states that you cannot accept gifts of more than $50 value. One of
your best clients offers you tickets to a pro-soccer match worth $150. Since you really
want to attend the game and do not want to offend the client, you accept the tickets.
Right or wrong?
8. As part of a team developing a new software product, you discover that a teammate
accepted an expensive gift from your Japanese partner while in Japan working out the
details of your agreement to bring the product to market. Do you report the teammate to
management or not?
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Culturally, such a gift would be acceptable; however, for one team member to receive the
9. You are a member of a hiring committee for a non-profit organization, focusing on
environmental issues. The committee has narrowed its search down to the “perfect
candidate.” However, when one member researched her on Google, he found pictures
and some personal confessions in Facebook that he found very offensive. He feared her
“questionable judgment,” as he called it, could hurt the organization’s fund-raising
efforts. Is hiring her or not an ethical question?
Not so much a question of ethics, but hiring this individual is an important strategic question
10. One of your employees has a personal blog. Apparently, he uses this blog regularly to
lambast his fellow workers, pointing out their flaws and mocking their mistakes.
Another employee found the blog and has brought it to your attention, noting that she is
offended by his behavior. Is speaking to him about his blog ethical?
Application 1.3 – Defining Transformational Leadership:
A Communication Profile
This leader profile assignment could be expanded to include a number of various types of
writing and presentation experiences for the students. Below are some specific assignments
with the instructions to hand out to students. In addition, example evalutation forms are
included. The proposal and report assignments are included in chapter 5, so these handouts
could be used then instead.
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As a final note based on my experience in using this assignment, some students will wait
until the last minute and will not, therefore, allow their group members enough time to
comment. In that case, the individual joining the discussion so late is penalized, not the
other group members.
Handout to use for overall assignment:
Leader Profile Assignment
For this assignment, you need to select a transformational leader in your field of study,
career, or other area of professional interest and create a profile of him or her as a model of
Please select this person carefully so that you can learn about leadership communication as
well as improve your own abilities. In addition, based on the individuals who have worked
best for this assignment in previous courses, I strongly suggest you do not select one of the
following as your person to profile:
1. Your parent or another relative
2. A major celebrity or famous political or historical figure
Approaches you could take to gather information on your selected profile target are follows:
1. Interviews: You can interview him or her or others about him or her or you can use
interviews that others have done. If you do an interview, you should write an
2. Web Research: You should search the Web to see what kind of Web presence he or
3. Personal Experiences: You can draw on your own experiences with the individual.
Explain what you have witnessed as examples of leadership communication.
4. Library Research: You can look in the university library or go online (Amazon, for
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1. Proposal
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Leader Profile Proposal Assignment
For the proposal, the instructor may want to have the students do a full-length
formal proposal or a more informal e-mail version. The instructions for both
follow below.
Profile Proposal E-Mail Assignment
For your proposal assignment, you should follow standard formats for a professional e-mail
of one page (see LC text) and include the following:
1. Standard sections (Date, To, From, Subject).
3. The individual’s identity, including name, title, current position, and relevance to
you or your career plans.
4. Your rationale for selecting him or her, including why you think he or she is a good
example of leadership communication and why you see him or her as a
5. Please attach your preliminary bibliography of where you plan to obtain information
Profile Proposal Assignment
For your proposal assignment, you should follow standard formats for your 3- to 5- page
proposals and include the following:
1. The individual’s name, title, current position, and relationship to you
2. Your rationale for selecting him or her. You must include why you have selected
him or her and why you think he or she is a good example of leadership
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3. Your plan for researching and obtaining information on him or her (work plan)
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Leader Profile Presentation Assignment
For the six-to-eight minute Leader Profile Presentation, you should try to capture the leader
you have profiled as well as possible. You should select from the questions that you will
answer in your report (see below) and deliver an informative presentation showing us how
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Leader Profile Report
For your final Leader Profile Report (5 to 8 pages), you will synthesize all of the
information that you have gathered and give me a coherent, comprehensive, logically
Questions you should answer in your report are as follows:
1. What does he or she do? What is his or her educational and professional experience and
what is his or her current title and position (content from a resume or bio)? Keep this
section very brief.
2. What is the major change or transformation for which this individual is known?
3. What kind of ethos does he or she project?
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9. How is he or she particularly skilled as a public speaker, writer, or in interpersonal
interactions? What do the examples of his or her communication abilities, such as a video,
recording, copy of written materials reveal about his or her communication styles and
abilities? You should include a brief rhetorical analysis of a portion of a speech or written
document to demonstrate his or her use of language. The objective of this portion of the
assignment is to help you appreciate a leader’s use of language for rhetorical purposes
(usually to argue a point of view or persuade others). Be sure to include the following:
a. Name of speech (occasion) or document, date, and location.
10. What have you learned about leadership communication by profiling this person? What
can we all learn? What makes him or her a good example of leadership communication?
11. How would you define leadership communication from your perspective, thinking about
your profiled leader as a model?
You should also include how you went about profiling this person, that is, interviews or
research, and attach your list of sources. Be careful to provide parenthetical documentation
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Evaluation of Profile Discussion & Proposal E-Mail
Name:
Overall Performance: ____________
On-line ________ E-mail _______
Overall comments:
Content
Structure & Format
On-line discussion (25%):
Prompt and appropriate responses to all
comments and questions
Answers the following questions fully:
o What type of leader he or she
exemplifies from Wills’ book
o Why you think he or she is a good
example of leadership
communication
Plan for researching and obtaining
information on him/her
Preliminary bibliography of sources
Interview guide (if appropriate)
Well organized, coherent.
Adequate transitions between sentences and
paragraphs
Opening & Closing
“So What?” subject line
Clear, specific context and stated purpose
for writing in the opening
Specific foreshadowing statement
Style & Tone
Appropriate tone for audience and context
Concise (not wordy, verbose, or
containing passive voice constructions)
Leader Profile Evaluation Forms
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Evaluation of Leader Profile Report
Name:
Overall Performance:__________
Comments:
Content
Structure & Format
Brief discussion on the following:
Individual’s current title and position
What are some examples of his/her leadership
communication abilities?
What role did or does communication play in
What do others say about his/her leadership
communication abilities?
What have you learned about leadership
communication by profiling this person? What
can we all learn? What makes him/her a good
example of leadership communication?
How would you define leadership
communication from your perspective, thinking
about your profiled leader as a model?
Clear, meaningful opening (context,
purpose, foreshadowing) and closing
Headers used for major sections
Style & Tone
believe, I feel, etc.)
No diction problems (poor word choices)
No unclear or awkward constructions
Grammar & Usage
No grammatical errors
No punctuation errors
Chapter 01 - What Is Leadership Communication?
Evaluation of Leader Profile Oral Presentation
Name:
Date:
Delivery
1
2
3
4
5
Comments
Eye contact
Voice, Diction, Usage
Fillers (uhs, etc)
Content & Organization
Introduction (hook, subject,
topics)
Organizational coherence
Graphics/PowerPoint
Adherence to basic principles
Ability to present
