TEACHING, LEARNING and
ASSESSMENT
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines ‘study’ variously as ‘a thing to be secured by pains or attention’, ‘devotion of time and thought to acquiring information especially from books’, ‘be on the watch, try constantly to manage’, ‘a thing that deserves to be investigated’. According to Jackson and Perry (2007, pp.3) There are broadly five ways that one can go about studying leadership. You can actually attempt to lead, you can observe leadership in action, you can talk about leadership, you can read about it, and you can write about it. The same is true for management, after all many people would argue that there is no difference between leadership and management. But we will be going further than just management in this module, here we are concerned with the way People and Work are managed and how this informs our Societies.
Given that we are in an academic setting, it won’t surprise you to learn that we find it easiest to talk about these things. After all, we do this all the time in our lectures, and workshops. You can assist in this regard as, whether you know it or not you do already have a philosophy about much of the material we will cover, that is you already possess views on what constitutes good and bad work, employment, and management. It could be formed from views on your parents, friends or work colleagues or a manager’s approach or the election of political leaders, it could be as a result of your culture or heritage.
Work, employment, and Management tends to be something that is high on everyone’s agendas and can be polarising subjects. Very often the most authoritative sources regarding matters of global and local work and people related issues are those who experience them, and this includes just about everyone – particularly those who engage in current affairs; which means that you will need to read and consume the news in order to do well in this module, but you should also be prepared to take on the views of those around you and the antecedents to their views.
Reading about topics covered should not be confined to books; the newspaper is a prime source of relevant stories. The next time you pick up your newspaper try counting how many times stories relating to people, work and society appears in it. Some students recognise that these terms will show up quite frequently in the business and politics sections but are surprised to learn how often they crop up in the sports and entertainment sections. Of course, the section in which these terms are most frequently mentioned is the career opportunities section – yet another reason to become interested in studying this module.