Advances in Management & Leadership - MAN00040I

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Module summary

This module addresses a fundamental issue for business management students: are management and leadership ideas, theories, and concepts effective? And, if not, how can they become more effective?

Professional requirements

N/A

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 2 2025-26

Module aims

Is there something seriously wrong with management and leadership? And if so, what can be done about it? Many businesses and public sector organizations have severe problems with poor leadership, weak performance, low employee morale and poor ethical standards. Has the problem to do with inadequate leadership and management training? Or maybe there is something also wrong with leadership and management knowledge? Why, for the huge size of the leadership, management and consulting industry, are the standards of management and leadership often so poor? This module aims to explore and rethink famous management and leadership ideas and to explore how management and leadership practice might be improved. It will enable students to reflect on their own potential as managers in relationship to the strengths and weaknesses, of business education and the practices it encourages.

Module learning outcomes

Students will be able to:

Develop an understanding of how contemporary management and leadership ideas develop and are used within businesses, politics, and public and third sector organisations

Assess the extent to which new management and leadership knowledge products are genuinely innovative and effective

Rethink the implications of management and leadership ideas for their own lives and practise as managers

Critically interpret classic and contemporary management and leadership approaches, texts, and concepts

Module content

Specific themes may include

• Historical roots of management and leadership ideas

• The creation and diffusion of management and leadership ideas through academia, consulting, training, and 'pop' management

• The effectiveness and otherwise of leadership and management ideas such as: KPIs and targets, psychometric testing, lean management, the work of high-profile 'gurus' such as Jim Collins and Tom Peters, as well as well-known leadership writers such as James Burns

• Controversies about management from outside the business school, e.g. from psychology (such as the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments)

• Controversies around management education and business schools

• High-profile leadership case studies drawn from politics and business

Teaching will focus on set readings ranging from ‘standard’ academic texts, through to popular leadership and management publications and media, such as leader biographies. A key element of the module will be for students to critically reflect on the module content in relation to their own development as potential or actual leaders and managers.

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Module feedback

Feedback will be given in accordance with the University Policy on feedback in the Guide to Assessment as well as in line with the School policy.

Indicative reading

Jackson, B, and Parry, K., (2018) A Very Short, Fairly Interesting, and Reasonably Cheap Book about Leadership. London: Sage;

Kellerman, B., (2018) Professionalizing Leadership. Oxford: Oxford University Press;

Mehri, D., (2006) ‘The Darker Side of Lean: An Insider’s Perspective on the Realities of the Toyota Production System’, Academy of Management Perspectives, 20(2): 21-42;

Brannigan, A., (2013) ‘Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiments: A Report Card 50 Years Later’, Society, 50, 6: 623-628;

Parker, M., (2018) Shut Down the Business School: What’s Wrong with Management Education. London: Pluto.