LEADING SOCIAL CHANGE PERSONAL PAPER – 15 POINTS The final paper will focus on YOU as a leader – your values and beliefs, your own present or future power and authority, your vision of social change, and your role as a possible agent of change.
There are several ways in which this can be written and presented, such as: 1. Your Wildest Dream: Write the paper as a description of your “wildest dream.” If you
could have your dream job or dream position in a group of people or an organization, that could affect social change, what would it be and how would you see your role?
2. Personal Reflection Now If you want to be more pragmatic, you can write this paper as an analysis of your present circumstances. You can describe a current work or social situation that exists now and what tools and concepts you can use to achieve a particular goal.
3. Evaluate PSU: You can apply all of the concepts we have used in class on a particular department or program at PSU. This only is helpful if you are involved in the department. Your view of mission statements, organizational structures, drivers and leadership characteristics need to be described in detail.
4. Community of Change: If you do not want to write just about yourself, you may write the paper from the point of view of a community. For example you can write about you as a group of students or as a religious or social community. How can you as students lead in the field of education or politics? This is a little trickier, but it can be very powerful and perhaps more useful for you at this stage in your lives.
5. Team Presentation Topic: If you like, you can take the topics and concepts from your team presentation and adapt them to your future role in social change. If you do so, please let me know by Week 8!
The paper should include the following requirements/concepts. o At least SIX pages in length:
! Double-spaced, 12-point font, proper margins. ! This does NOT include any pages used for diagrams, or org charts, etc.
o Your latest definition of leadership: • It is fine to use someone else’s definition as long as you say whose it is and explain
why you like it in your own words. o A description for the social change with which you would like to be involved:
! This can be very specific, but keep in mind that the change should be broadly social in nature. not just a personal issue.
o A description of the field in which you would like to be involved and the change you would like to see happen: ! Try to be as specific as possible. For example, don’t just say “Business,” but
perhaps investment banking or the restaurant business. Obviously, you may not have a complete picture of this, but try to choose the most likely.
! This is not limited to your professional life. You could choose your social or even personal life, i.e. family, hobbies, religious organizations, etc.
o A description of your relationship with others in the organization as a leader, follower or member of the audience: ! For example what would your title be? If you choose a work setting this might be
partially explained in an organization chart, but perhaps not.
o A description of your personal Internal Drivers in that field: ! Why is it important to you as a person (or community)? ! Why would others want to follow you or work with you to follow someone else?
o A description of the External Drivers (social, political, economic, etc. ) in that field. What drivers are there in Society that will either help or hinder you in that social change?
o A description of your leadership attributes (and style if we get that far in class) and why they would work well in that field: ! What are your skills, personality type, authority or sources of power that you could
use? ! Why is your most likely leadership style and whose definition are you using?
o A description of an Organizational Chart for an organization that you might create or join in order to affect that change.
o The paper is relatively free of misspelling and grammatical errors. o You have at least two citations that do not include the textbook, but can be from pretty
much any other source.
Your grade will be based upon:
(1) Completeness in describing the concepts above and connections to discussion/readings (2) Evidence of critical thinking – strengths and weaknesses identified, critical questions raised,
connection to your own ideas – especially where you disagree with the text or discussions in class.
The paper is due at midnight on the Wednesday of Finals Week. Please, upload this paper to D2L.
