Institute of Commercial Management | Qualification Subject

Leadership Studies

ICM Professional Diploma Unit

The Nature of Leadership

  • Definitions of leadership
  • Leadership effectiveness
  • Major research approaches
  • Conceptualising leadership
  • Comparing leadership theories

Nature of Managerial Work

  • Activity patterns of managerial work
  • Content of managerial work
  • Theory of demands, constraints, choices
  • Research on situational determinants
  • The changing nature of managerial work
  • Managerial discretion
  • Descriptive research
  • Application for managers

Perspectives on Effective Leadership Behaviour

  • Ohio state leadership studies
  • Michigan leadership studies
  • Limitations of survey research
  • Experiments on task and relations behaviour
  • Research using critical incidents
  • High-high leader
  • Leadership behaviour taxonomies
  • Specific task behaviours
  • Specific relations behaviours
  • Evaluating the behaviour approach

Participative Leadership, Delegation and Empowerment

  • Nature of participative leadership
  • Consequences of participation
  • Research on effects of participative leadership
  • Normative decision model
  • Guidelines for participative research
  • Delegation
  • Guidelines for delegating
  • Empowerment

Dyadic Role-Making Theories

  • Leader-member exchange theory
  • Leader attributions about subordinates
  • Follower attributions and implicit theories
  • Follower contributions to effective leadership
  • Self-management
  • Integrating leader and follower roles

Power and Influence

  • Conceptions of power and authority
  • Power types and sources
  • Acquiring and losing power
  • Consequences of position and personal power
  • Types of influence behaviour
  • Power and influence behaviour
  • Research on influence tactics

Managerial Traits and Skills

  • Nature of traits and skills
  • Early research on leader traits and skills
  • Major research programmes of research on leader traits
  • Managerial traits and effectiveness
  • Managerial skills and effectiveness
  • Other relevant competencies
  • Situational relevance of skills
  • Evaluation of trait research
  • Application guidelines

Contingency Theories of Effective Leadership

  • LPC contingency model
  • Path-goal theory of leadership
  • Leadership substitutes theory
  • The multiple-linkage model
  • Cognitive resources theory
  • Evaluation of contingency theories
  • Application guidelines

Charismatic and Transformational Leadership

  • Early theories
  • Attribution theory of charismatic leadership
  • Self-concept theory of charismatic leadership
  • Other conceptions of charisma; consequences of charismatic leadership
  • Transformational leadership
  • Research on theories; transformational versus charismatic leadership
  • Evaluation of theories
  • Guidelines for transformational leadership

Leading Change in Organisations

  • Change processes
  • Different types of organisational change
  • Influencing organisational culture
  • Developing a vision
  • Implementing change
  • Increasing innovation and learning

Leadership in Teams and Decision Groups

  • Nature of teams
  • Functional teams
  • Cross-functional teams
  • Self-managed work teams
  • Self-defining teams
  • Virtual teams
  • Procedures for facilitating team learning
  • Guidelines for team building
  • Decision-making in groups
  • Leadership functions in meetings
  • Guidelines for leading meetings

Strategic Leadership

  • Constraints on executive discretion
  • Attributions about chief executives
  • Research on effects of leadership succession
  • Evolutionary change and strategic leadership
  • Political power and strategic leadership
  • Executive tenure and strategic leadership
  • Executive teams
  • Competing values in strategic leadership
  • Monitoring the environment
  • Formulating strategy

Developing Leadership Skills

  • Leadership training programmes
  • Designing effective training
  • Techniques for leadership training
  • Learning from experience
  • Developmental activities
  • Self-help activities
  • Facilitating conditions for leadership development
  • Systems perspective on leadership development

Ethical Leadership and Diversity

  • Ethical leadership
  • Gender and leadership
  • Leadership in different cultures
  • Managing diversity

Example Candidate Response Booklet

Example Candidate Response (ECR) Booklets are a source of crucial information for Centres and Candidates as they use real candidate responses. We ask Senior Examiners to comment on five or more responses in terms of why the mark was awarded with commentary about how to improve the answer (if necessary).

Recommended Reading

Main Text:

Leadership in Organizations – Gary Yukl (Prentice Hall)

Indicative Text:

Alternative Text and Further Reading:

Not Bosses But Leaders – John Adair (Talbot Adair)

On Becoming a Leader – Warren Bennis (Century)

The Leadership Factor – J Kotter (Free Press)

Leadership – J M Burns (Harper & Row)

Leading Minds – H Gardner (Harper Collins)

Leading Change – J Kotter (Harvard Business School Press)

Making it Happen, Reflections on Leadership – John Harvey-Jones (Fontana)

Super Leadership – C Manz & H Sims (Prentice Hall) Leadership Theories

Practical Leadership

Developing Leaders – John Adair (Talbot Adair). Management Teams, Why They Succeed or Fail – R Meredith Belbin (Heinemann). The Wisdom of Teams – Jon Katzenbach & Douglas Smith (Harvard Business School). Understanding Motivation – John Adair (Talbot Adair). Games People Play – Eric Berne (Penguin)

Leadership & Change

Intelligent Leadership: Creating a Passion for Change – Alan Hooper & J Potter (Random House). The Coming Shape of Organisations – R Meredith Belbin (Butterworth Heinemann). Rethinking Organisation: New Directions in Organisation Theory & Analysis – M Reed & M Hughes (Sage). Managing Today & Tomorrow – R Stewart (Macmillan). The Future of Leadership – R P White, P Hodgson & C Crainer (Pitman). Beyond Certainty – Charles Handy (Arrow Business Books). The Fifth Discipline – P Senge (Doubleday/Currency). Competing for the Future – G Hamel & CK Prahalad (Harvard Business School Press)