LEADERSHIP - 2025/6

Module Overview

The module will provide students an insight of a wide range of leadership practices in the extant literature in the context of tourism, hospitality and events. The module will cover from the fundamental notions of leadership frameworks/concepts to contemporary views of leadership practices. It offers a range of theoretical approaches and  practices and their application within tourism, hospitality and events context.  This will allow students to understand how leadership styles can impact individual wellbeing as well as organisational performance.

Module provider

Surrey Hospitality & Tourism Management

Module Leader

MA Emily (Hosp & Tour)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

The module can be summarised into the following main areas:

1. Introduction

• Definition: Ways of Conceptualising Leadership


• Description: Leadership and Management; Leadership and Power; Leadership and Coercion

2. Approaches to Leadership

• Trait Approach


• Skills Approach


• Style Approach


• Situational Approach


• Contingency Theory


• Path-Goal Theory


• LMX Theory

3. Types of Leadership style

• Transformational Leadership; Transactional Leadership; Servant Leadership; Paternalistic Leadership

4. Leadership in School of Hospitality and Tourism Management Context

• Strategy and development

5. Issues in Leadership Research

• Leadership development


• Leadership and Creativity


• Leadership and Power


• Leadership and Ethics


• Leadership and Innovation


• Leadership and Entrepreneurship

6. Group Presentations & Revision & Essay guidance

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

For the Group Presentation - A 4-hour online exam covering all lectures and tutorial contents

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate the awareness and insight of leadership issues/ practices in organisations at an advanced level. Students are required to demonstrate knowledge of theory, research evidence and contemporary practice. Students can choose to base their assignment from a selection of industry leaders. 


Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Group-based Presentation on a Leader from the Hospitality, Events and Tourism Industry 

        This assignment is group-based. Choose a leader in hospitality, events, and tourism and build on an extensive search, prepare a poster presentation on the main achievements of the leadership styles, strengths and weaknesses of the leadership approach, and a case that best demonstrates their leadership approaches.

• Individual Assignment 

The individual assignment is an academic essay.

Based on a leadership case study and using relevant theory, students will be asked to review and evaluate how the leader managed organisational and personal issues (both positive and negative situations). Students will also reflect on their own leadership style and how this could work (theoretically) in practice with their case study leader. 

Formative assessment and feedback

This module adopts an enquiry based approach to feedback where the emphasis is on providing resources to students which allow them to identify their own strengths and weaknesses in order to develop learning strategies which will allow them to improve their performance. These resources include:

• Prior to the assignment, lecture time will be spent discussing the assignment and feedback process;


• A detailed marking scheme which provides guidance on how marks will be awarded for each element of assessment. This marking scheme has benefits for both staff and students; for staff it allows for consistency of marking between markers and for rapid and rigorous marking, for students it makes it absolutely clear what is expected of them. Students will receive a mark for each element of the assignment which they can reference to the marking scheme for details individual feedback;


• Generic feedback which explains what students did well and did less well overall. This will take two forms. In the first lecture after submission, time will be spent explaining the key learning issues form the assignment and, once marking is completed, students will received detailed generic feedback via SurreyLearn including a statistical breakdown of marks so that they can place their own performance into that of their cohort.

Marks and specific feedback will be returned to students within 3 weeks of submission.

Module aims

• To provide frameworks, concepts and tools for students to understand how employees are managed these days by different leadership practices, and the extent to which these leadership practices have made an impact to individual welling and organisational performance.
• To develop student's analytical skill by providing them an opportunity to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the practical aspects of leadership approaches used in organisations these days.
• To encourage critical thinking and an awareness of the different competencies and skills that are required for leaders to deal with issues at the workplace, especially in a situation where leaders have to manage adverse situations.
• To give students an opportunity to develop a plan for how to improve the competencies and skills of a leader.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to be in the form of lectures and seminars. Class room based activities should follow the weekly lecture to ensure theory taught is embedded by discussion and seminar activities.

The lectures will comprise of teaching frameworks, concepts and ideas of leadership research in the extant literature. Seminars will operate on the basis of discussions of lecture materials/case studies, and some small group exercises/activities. Class time will be given for students to prepare their group presentations.

In order to improve student peer to peer engagement and learning, students are encouraged to watch each others podcasts. Further, in order to invite student’s participation/ active involvement in class, all students are required to read the assigned reading every week before the planned sessions. .

In order to enhance student’s learning experience, a number of real/adopted case studies will be used for discussion in class. For some classes, students will also be given chances to participate in group exercises/activities for practical reason. This module will also make use of the University’s virtual learning environment to support learning. For example, in order to encourage discussion within each group, the online discussion forum will be used and online discussion activiely encouraged.

The learning and teaching methods include:

• taught and interactive sessions


• independent learning for reading, research, and group discussion & presentation (Personal-directed/ self-directed learning and Group-directed learning)

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: MAN3149

Other information

This module adopts the University curriculum framework, which aims to develop students with strong capabilities in Global and Cultural Capabilities, Employability, Sustainability, Rand Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module contributes to the development of the following capacities: 

Global and Cultural Capabilities: Students in this module will have opportunities to learn human resources management policies and practices in a global culture, and to have an appreciation of diversity, and cultural differences. Through team works and activities, students will also have opportunities to learn cultural differences and enhance their cultural capabilities when communicating and working with a group of students from the diverse cultural background. 

Employability: The learning and teaching activities and assessments will help students gain knowledge of different types of leadership, and critically evaluate each type’s advantages and disadvantages. Students also can better understand their leadership styles and enhance leadership skills through self-assessments and teamwork, which will not only help them better understand leadership and leaders and students themselves, thus enhancing students’ employability. 

Sustainability: Students will learn the importance of being ethical and responsible leaders, and leaders’ roles in supporting the sustainable goals of the organization and the environment. 

Resourcefulness and Resilience: Students will be introduced to a range of resources, such as Glassdoor, SHRM, and Google Scholar, and will be required to use different resources to work on group-based and individual-based projects. Students will be asked to identify and critically evaluate the challenges faced by different

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.