Assignment

Submit Draft of Final Paper

Submit a draft of your final paper for instructor review. The paper does not need to be completed in its entirety, but you should have a significant portion of the work done at this point. Grading for this assignment will be based on the overall direction that the assignment has taken, and how it meets the goals of the assignment. See Week 6 for the specific details relevant to the final assignment.

Final Paper Instructions:

A culminating goal for the Leading Across Boundaries course is to provide you with the opportunity to become familiar with the practice of leading across boundaries in an organizational scenario. Choose from either a personal experience (past or present) within an organization you work or research an organization that is experiencing challenges regarding boundaries. In this case scenario, you have been given a consulting contract by this company to analyze the company’s internal work environment for challenges and opportunities related to boundaries within the organization. Through primary and/or secondary research you are to assess the company’s policies, practices, structure, and procedures to determine where there could be ineffective boundaries and develop a strategy to implement boundary spanning practices.

This final project is designed to give you an opportunity to do the following:

· Shift your behaviors, skills, and mindset to start recognizing and identifying the boundaries that create limiting boarders: dividing groups, fracturing relationships, creating conflict, and diminishing the potential performance within an organization and other environments.

· Implement practical tactics to incorporate boundary spanning into everyday leadership.

· Recognize how you as a leader and others can transform organizational thinking and culture to shift people from “silos” and direct them toward a more collaborative culture. Display interdependent leadership.

· Reflect on your own learning of how you can put boundary spanning into action.

Final Project Components

The final paper should be 4000-5000 words long, not including title and reference pages. Your research should include the course textbook Boundary Spanning Leadership and at least five additional peer reviewed resources. The paper should also address each of the following points about a research strategy.

· Introduction of your scenario (organization). The introduction provides an opportunity to communicate the importance of collaboration and leading across boundaries to the chosen organization. Provide research that supports the importance and impact regarding boundaries.

· Analyze and explain what is happening that leads you to diagnose the limiting boundaries within the organization? This might include communication channels, long-standing practices, or distribution of power based on positions, backgrounds, and locations.

· Through your analysis you will then diagnose or identify what boundaries are limiting potential, restricting creativity and innovation, and slowing down necessary change. These boundaries can also represent the opportunities and breakthrough possibilities of the company.

· Describe what behaviors or perspectives have led to your identification.

· What is the impact on the individual, team(s), and organization? Why does boundary spanning leadership matter? Who does it matter to? What is the payoff personally, professionally, and bottom-line for leaders and groups to work collaboratively across boundaries?

· Integrate knowledge on cultural competence. How might individuals be experiencing cultural differences?

· Create solutions around the three interrelated strategies: managing boundaries, forging common ground, and discovering new frontiers. How will you implement boundary spanning practices? Provide instruction for implementation.

· Provide long-term recommendations for continued boundary spanning practices and suggestions on how to sustain these behaviors in the future.

· As part of your conclusion, communicate your personal reflections of what you learned about the practice of boundary spanning. What have you learned about yourself and how does this relate?