Student Research Projects

Leadership Theory and Capacity Analysis

Student Name(s)	J. Kristine Matthews
Department	Management, Business and Economics
Course	MBE 490

Abstract

Faculty Mentor: Ms. Deborah York

Is leadership truly a critical component in organizational success? My approach to answering this question was two-fold. First, I built my knowledge base by researching a number of books and references to identify twenty five sources of key contemporary theories on leadership. I then created an annotated bibliography which allowed me to explore each of these theories individually. From that knowledge base, I built a skillset by applying those concepts and theories through conducting a leadership capacity analysis for my own organization. This was really helpful in illustrating the application of theory in a real-life environment. I was able to see how real people in real-world organizations actually respond to the things we read about in texts.