Ким И.А. Ордабай А.

Таразский государственный университет им. М.Х. Дулати

Developing leadership skills by means of Case study method

Any organization needs effective leadership for achieving its goals. It is especially important for business organizations to have a successful leader who can motivate people to achieve results, as the main objective of any organization is to ensure positive growth in order to get a higher profit. At different periods of human civilization there existed different understanding of the notion “leadership”. In the 1920’s it was considered as a quality which certain individuals were born with. But in the 1930’s, leadership was defined as a trait which could be developed with the help of an experienced teacher. Later there were given other definitions like:

• Leadership is the art of influencing human behavior through ability to directly influence people and direct them toward a specific goal.”

• It is the process by which an individual determines direction and influences others to accomplish the mission of the organization.

All of them imply that leadership is not an inborn quality of a person; it is something that can be acquired and developed, it is a trainable, transferable skill. But a person cannot become a leader overnight. It requires time, desire to overcome difficulties and overcome one’s own fears and uncertainty, psychological problems and lack of self-esteem and confidence. Leadership development is the process and set of actions which help an individual develop and train his leadership skills. And there exist comprehensive methods and techniques of their acquisition. It is better for a person who wants to acquire the leadership skills to start to develop them at the university.

But before speaking about them, let us define what qualities and traits a person should develop in him if he wants to become a strong leader, who can take a risk in order to get a positive result and progress, and what are his functions. These traits can include the following: enthusiasm, knowledge, dependability, initiative, decisiveness, rationality and creativity, ability to make a decision and take responsibility for possible results and consequences, and others.

John Adair, who developed his Action Centered Leadership model while lecturing at Royal Military Academy in Britain, outlines the main functions of leadership which he considers to be vital:

Planning - seeking information, defining tasks, setting aims

Initiating - briefing, task allocation, setting standards

Controlling - maintaining standards, ensuring progress, ongoing decision-making

Supporting - individuals' contributions, encouraging, team spirit, reconciling, morale

Informing - clarifying tasks and plans, updating, receiving feedback and interpreting

Evaluating - feasibility of ideas, performance, enabling self-assessment

With the introduction of the course of Professional English into the University curriculum of Kazakhstan higher educational institutions, it can be successfully done at the lessons of Professional English for students whose major is Economics as there is a rich arsenal of different methods. We understand that leadership skills are revealed in stressful situations so students should be trained to act as early as possible in situations close to real ones. To develop them it is possible to use such methods as critical thinking in problem solving and decision-making within a Case study method which are important in many ways.

Application of this method allows students not only to master English and use it for communication, but it also facilitates the development of students' independent thinking, the ability to listen to and consider alternative views to express his own. With this method students have an opportunity to demonstrate and improve their analytical and evaluative skills, learn to work as a team to find the most efficient solution to the problems in a crisis situation and thus to develop their leadership skills. As Antipova M.V. says, Case study method allows obtaining skills in teamwork (Team Job Skills); developing skills of searching information, its generalizations, argumentation and its presentation. This in its turn leads to ability to optimal behavior in different situations and effective action in an emergency situation which is necessary for a good leader.

The work on any case usually consists of five main stages:

• Introduction of the situation and its peculiarities;

• Defining the main problem;

• Suggestions of concepts for brainstorming;

• Analysis of consequences of the decision;

• Solution of the problem, offering one or several decisions

For working on any case it is a good idea to break the students into small groups or teams to discuss and come to some consensus. Teamwork is usually necessary when there is a need for a collective effort from different people to achieve the common goal. It is especially needed in a business process as without it the business will not succeed. Teamwork is any group of individuals who are united to work together in order to achieve some positive results. Every member of the team is working, communicating, cooperating, and coordinating with one another in order to reach aims they have set, which are not achievable alone. Good work in a group will also ensure quality output.

Teams of students usually consist of members who differ from one another in terms of skills or talents and knowledge. And working together is a great opportunity to acquire skills, to benefit from other students, from the opportunity to challenge the ideas of other members and come up with a compromise solution that contributes to the successful achievement of the main goal. Thus by working in a team students develop such leadership skills as: good communication skills, ability to listen to the opinion of other people, to cooperate, coordinate and manage a group.

During the first stage there is hardly any work concerning developing leadership skills, as students mainly do a lot of language work (new lexis, questions for understanding the information, etc.). But the next stages require a lot of critical thinking while defining the problem, analysis and synthesis of the information and argumentation. The method facilitates the development of students' independent thinking, reasoning, and the ability to listen and consider alternative views, to express his and to find a reasonable and most efficient solution to the problem, the skills which are crucial for a good leader. On the stage of demonstrating possible ways of solution of the problem, students develop their presentation skills.

Presentations skills are very useful in many aspects for their work and everyday life. They can be important in business, sales and selling (these are the spheres of students’ activities in future after graduating from the university), and generally feeling comfortable and confident while speaking to a small or large group of people. Development of confidence and capability to give good presentations, and to speak in public, are also an extremely helpful skill and competencies for a leader in a business organization. And students, working on any case and presenting the results of their teamwork learn to overcoming fear of public speaking and presentations. For doing this they need experience, which is actually just another manageable element of a Case study method. The process of preparation and creating a convincing and persuasive presentation includes several steps: preparing, creating, checking, rehearsing, refining and finalizing the presentation. Working on this and making presentations students develop their skills of public presentation.

In conclusion it can be noted that by means of Case study method it is really possible to train students for a leadership role in a business organization. As there is no right answer to any case, the work on it is very similar to a real life situation and it is true of many leadership decisions. How to find the best course of action, how to find best method to make the decision, how to make any changes, how to evaluate consequences? The best a leader can prioritize, look for an input of others, work out a sound and reasonable plan, and try to make a thoughtful decision.

Literature

Джон Адаир о менеджменте и лидерстве, «ЭКСМО», - 2007

“Adair on leadership”, Thorogood (December 1, 2003) ISBN-10: 1854182188

Антипова М.В. «Метод кейсов (case study)», ФГБУ ВПО «МарГТУ», Сентябрь, 2011

Linda W. Little “Critical thinking and Communication Skills”. Longman, 1991

Witte, A.E (Ed.) (1999) Interactive Cases for Business English, Ellipses: Paris