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Essay Instructions: Background
Leadership scholars recognize that the most successful leaders revitalize and transform their organizations. Accordingly, these leaders? orientation is referred to as ?transformational leadership?. Transformational leadership is perceived as a leadership approach that causes change in individuals and in groups. In its ideal form, it creates valuable and positive change in the followers with the end goal of developing followers into leaders. Enacted in its authentic form, transformational leadership enhances the motivation, morale and performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms. These include connecting the follower's sense of identity and self to the mission and the collective identity of the organization; being a role model for followers that inspires them; challenging followers to take greater ownership for their work, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of followers, so the leader can align followers with tasks that optimize their performance.

Required Reading

Carless, S. A., Wearing, A. J., & Mann, L. (2000) . A short measure of transformational leadership. Journal of Business and Psychology, 14, 389-405.




Assignment
You are asked to read the article by Carless, Wearing, & Mann, L. (2000). Then after having a very clear idea about the meaning of the seven behavioral manifestations of transformational leadership, asses your transformational leadership score following these rules:

Give yourself a score on each of the seven dimensions between 1 (rarely or never) to 5 (very frequently).
Sum up your scores and divide them by 7 to get your average score on the scale.
Ask someone who knows you well (preferably someone who works with you) to rate your leadership behavior on the scale and calculate the average score.
Compare the results obtained by yourself and your friend/peer.
What do you think about your scores on that scale? Are they high/low? What does it say about your leadership style?
Based on the results you obtained, on what aspect of your leadership behavior you think you should focus to improve your leadership style? How this might translate into actual behaviors at the workplace? What might be the results of such an improvement?
It is really important that you get a second opinion about your leadership behavior from someone who knows you, preferably in the work context. If for some reason you can't get a second opinion as part of this exercise, be sure that you explain well why it's not possible. Just ignoring this part of the exercise will cost you part of a grade.

Your paper should be short (2-3 pages, not including the cover sheet, references, and assessment sheet) and to the point. You are expected to deal with these issues in an integrated fashion, rather than treating them as a series of individual questions to be answered one by one and left at that.

Keys to the Assignment
The key aspects of this assignment that should be covered in your paper include:

Completion of the assessment according to the guidelines and interpreting the results.
Including the actual instrument and results.
Based on your results, explain how you could improve your leadership behaviors and under what conditions.
Based on your results, explain how improving your leadership behaviors might translate into actual behaviors at the workplace? And what might be the results of such an improvement?
Assignment Expectations

Your paper will be evaluated on the following points:

Precision - Does the paper address the question(s) or task(s)?
Clarity - Is the writing clear and the concepts articulated properly? Are paraphrasing and synthesis of concepts the primary means of response to the questions, or are excessive use of quotations how thoughts are conveyed?
Breadth - Is the full breadth of the subject, i.e., the keys to the assignment, addressed?
Depth - Does the paper address the topic in sufficient depth, and include the background readings and other background resources as references?
Organization - Is the paper written well? Does the grammar, spelling, and vocabulary appropriate to graduate level work? Are headings included in all papers greater than 2 pages?
Referencing (citations and references) - Does the paper use citations and quotation marks where appropriate? Are the references from the background readings and assignment used and properly cited? Are all references listed in the bibliography used and referred to via citation?
Application - Are the concepts of the module appropriately applied to the subject organization?

Essay Instructions: THIS PAPER NEEDS TO BE OBJECTIVE NOT SUBJECTIVE

Social Work
Oral Case Presentation/family assessment

You were referred a family made up of Liz Rochaleau, a 23 year old Caucasian female, her 4- year old daughter Jackie and her new partner, Katie.

Liz recently divorced Jackie's father and moved herself and Jackie in with her new partner, Katie.
Jackie's day care teacher expresses concern about her demeanor and behavior. At times, she seems forlorn and very tired. Other concerns include fact that Jackie's clothing sometimes appears slept in and she eats her snacks and lunch as if they are her “last meal”.


Attachment #4 Family Assessment Oral Case Outline

Components of the Assignment

I. Identifying Information and Presenting Issues
II. Pre-engagement Process
Assess what you, as the family social worker, would need to do in preparing to work with this family.

III. Engagement
Describe the engagement process with this family being mindful of diversity dimensions. Be sure to include information from the text regarding engagement. Demonstrate differential use of skills and attunement and sensitivity to family and its situation.

IV. Assessment of Family System

A.Assess family structure
B.Assess family functioning
Assessment of family functioning examines the way a family fulfills certain common needs
1. The family as a system
Assess relationships among individuals; Assess emotional connections and interaction patterns

2. Boundaries and subsystems
Assess boundaries ??"internal or external. Assess subsystems functioning, roles, tasks; Assess strengths and problem areas of subsystems;

3. Family norms and roles
Assess norms/ rules -how enforced and by whom; Assess roles-flexible, rigid; adopted, ascribed; Assess balance of power??" perception of adequacy and fairness; Assess ways power and control are exhibited and by whom. Assess decision-making??"how are decisions made; who has the greatest say.

4. Family Communication
Assess family communication - both verbal and nonverbal communication styles and avenues of communication. Assess degree of openness, honesty, directness, and self-revelation.

5. Intergenerational aspects of family systems
Assess family’s history; the family of origin experience

C. Assess family life cycle adjustments
Assess past to current life cycle stages, stressors associated with stages, and impact on family’s development; Assess events that have impacted family and family membership at each life cycle stage.
Assess attachments -degree of expansion and contraction at various stages; level of realignment..

D. Assess social environment (internal) ??"
Assess family’s social environment; asses how well family is meeting basic functions of providing food, shelter, safety or protection, health, education, and nurturance. Assess level of stability and competence. Assess demands of the “care-giving” role
Assess the emotional climate/mood and overall impact on family’s ability to perform its basic functions. Assess resources within the family.
Assess strengths and risks of the social environment
E. Assess Family Strengths, Resiliency, Conflicts, and Problems
1. Marital or partner ??" assess strengths, conflicts or problems in communication, child-rearing, sexual relationship, fidelity, use of recreational time and money, relational/interaction
2. Parent/child relationships ??" assess strengths, conflicts or problems in parent-child relationships and interactions; assess parental effectiveness and existence of triangles.

3. External environments ??" assess stressors, risks, conflicts, problem-situations, opportunities, resources, and strengths of the external environments; assess impact on family system. Assess family’s experience of receiving support

4. Assess strengths and resiliency of family system

F. Family’s Culture, Rituals, and Beliefs

Assess relevance of cultural heritage-what is normative in the context of family’s culture. Assess family’s belief system and its impact on interaction, exchanges, and solutions sought for issues. Assess traditions/ rituals-how family observes and celebrates them and the degree to which they promote or interfere with healthy development.

G.Assess Individual Strengths and Problems
Assess personal problem areas; current physical and mental health status; strengths; and developmental phase for each member. Assess how each individual’s issues and strengths contribute to the family as a whole

V. Other Areas of Assessment
Assess value, ethical & legal implications for you as the family social worker.
Assess policy issues or macro concerns; how might they affect your work with this family?
Assess human diversity, human rights, social and economic justice issues.

VI. Summary
Pull together the assessment and create a picture of this family- describe the family situation, issues, concerns, and strengths.
Choose and apply a specific theoretical, developmental or conceptual lens to understand this family.

VII. Planning
Identify problem areas, translate into needs and set priorities; Develop goals. Consider what goals might be important to this family. What goals are important to work on with them? Identify specific objectives and actions steps related to the goals.

VIII. Intervention
Choose interventions that are culturally appropriate and fit the client system’s concerns and issues. Intervention flows from the assessment data and must address the problem area/situations targeted for change or improvement. It is important to engage in research-informed practice.
It is best to consider several interventions or strategies that are coordinated and will complement one another. For example, social skills training for a young child with issues of aggression to help him/her develop competence in peer play may be complemented with home visit strategy focused on parent training. Review the literature and see what are the most effective interventions, treatments or strategies for this population and these problem areas.
IX. Evaluation
How would you evaluate the effectiveness of your work with this family? What specific tools or strategy would you use? Describe the evaluation process and give evidence to support your choice.