Explore and write a paper on the topic of supervisory role, skills or current issues in a health-related human service organization. Examples of appropriate topics include: focus on specific leadership or supervision skills or activities. The topic I am choosing to explore is‘Leading Teams’
Then complete the following steps:
1.Investigate this topic by reviewing the literature.
2.Contact a person to interview who is currently in a leadership or high-level management position in your work or a health-related social service field to discuss the topic you have chosen to verify/go deeper.I have attached the interview.
3.Write the paper in the following format:
a.Literature review of the topic. Identify any gaps or contradictions in the literature (4-5 pages);Here, your literature review needs to reflect your argument/thesis. Your thesis/argument comes from a specific area/topic. When writing the literature review, you are situating your thesis/topic in an ongoing scholarly dialogue. You are using the literature review to ground your thesis statement and demonstrate that your contribution to this scholarly conversation is valuable. You raise contradictions and gaps to set up your argument as the solution/intervention to those gaps and contradictions. Without a thesis statement or concrete opinion…I do not see how a literature review can be coherent.
b.Synthesis and analysis of the interview you have conducted and how that challenges/contradicts/confirms the literature (3-4 pages);Now that you have your argument and a literature review to ground it, what threads can you take from the interview and other literature that builds on, justifies, and affirms your argument? This is your main task in this section, and that constitutes your analysis. I will listen to your interview, so the summary should be brief because it does not add anything new that I won’t get from listening to your interview. The bulk of your work here is analysis. You cannot analyze sufficiently in the absence of an anchor.
c.Your self-reflection on the literature and the interview, and how your practice will be affected by what you have learned (3-4 pages);After your analysis and justifying your argument, the question that will always remain is so what? What will you do with this brilliant argument and analysis? Does this analysis have any bearing on your professional practice? How? If you were a leader/supervisor, how will your analysis inform your leadership?
d.Recommend next steps for research, training, and/or policy (1-2 pages);Your argument will always have gaps…what gaps do you see in your thesis? Can you identify these gaps and propose research questions to address them? If someone, were to continue your train of thought, what would they add to your argument? What would be a logical follow-up question given where you landed with your analysis? This section addresses all or some of the questions above
e.Include your interview questions as an appendix to the paper.
4.Paper will be graded in terms of adequacy of assessment, and overall integration of both course readings/discussions and outside literature.
5.References: minimum of 8-10 references (APA styling).
6.Length: 12-14 pages, excluding references; 12 point font; APA styling; title page; double-spaced. ThePurdue Online Writing Labsite has excellent updated and accessible guidelines for using APA referencing style.