| Course | GM502 Leadership Theory and Practice I |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Seminar reflection |
| Length | About 900 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM502 Unit 6
The Ranking That Did Not Survive: A Unit 6 Seminar Reflection on Substitutes for Leadership
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GM502: Leadership Theory and Practice I
Unit 6 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The three leaders and the classmates who described them are composite; the theorists and studies cited are real.
The Three Leaders
The chief petty officer led a division of about thirty sailors maintaining aircraft on a carrier. My classmate described him as demanding, present on every shift and the person junior sailors went to first with problems. The air traffic control supervisor ran a terminal radar facility's day shift, managing eleven controllers. She was described as calm, even-handed and rarely involved in moment-to-moment work. The head of sales at a software start-up led six account executives in the company's second year. He set targets weekly, rewrote pitches and joined many sales calls himself, and the team missed its annual target by about 20 percent.
The First Ranking
The instructor asked us to rank them by how good a leader each seemed. By show of hands, the chief petty officer came first, the air traffic supervisor second and the head of sales last. I voted with the majority. The chief seemed the most active and admired, and the head of sales had missed his number.
Running the Substitutes
The instructor then introduced Steven Kerr and John Jermier's argument that some features of subordinates, tasks and organizations can substitute for leadership, making a leader's behavior unnecessary, or neutralize it, preventing it from having an effect. Their list includes followers' experience and professional orientation, tasks that are routine or provide their own feedback, and organizations with formal rules and cohesive work groups (Kerr & Jermier, 1978). We went through each setting asking which substitutes were present.
The air traffic facility was full of them. Controllers are highly trained and licensed, procedures are written in detail, the radar screen gives immediate feedback and the work culture is strongly professional. Most of what a supervisor might provide, direction, standards and feedback, was already supplied by the job and the training. The carrier division had some substitutes, including detailed maintenance procedures and a strong naval culture, but many sailors were young and inexperienced, and the chief's presence filled gaps the system left open. The start-up had almost none. The product was new, there were no established sales procedures, the account executives had little experience selling it, and the company had no formal processes to speak of.
The supervisor we ranked second had the most help from her setting, and the head of sales we ranked last had the least; we had been ranking the situations as much as the people.
That reframed the ranking. The air traffic supervisor's calm, low-involvement style may have been exactly right for a setting where substitutes did most of the work. The head of sales was working in a setting where his behavior was the main source of direction, and a 20 percent shortfall in a company's second year, with an unproven product, might reflect a hard situation more than a weak leader.
What Complicated It Further
A classmate who works in research pointed out that the substitutes idea has been tested and the evidence is mixed. A large study found that substitutes explained more of the variation in employee attitudes and performance than leader behaviors did, but that leader behaviors still mattered alongside them (Podsakoff et al., 1996). So the lesson is not that leadership disappears where substitutes exist, but that it is harder to see and to judge.
Where I Ended Up
I no longer think the first ranking was meaningful. It rewarded the leader whose behavior was most visible and penalized the one with the hardest situation. If I had to rank them now, I would refuse a single ranking and instead ask how well each leader's style fit what the setting already supplied. Situational approaches to leadership make the same point from another direction, treating effective leadership as a match between style and setting rather than a fixed quality of the person (Northouse, 2021). On that question, the air traffic supervisor and the chief both fit their settings well, and the head of sales may also have fit his, though his results do not show it yet.
I still think the head of sales made some mistakes. Joining most sales calls himself may have kept his account executives from learning, which in a setting with no substitutes is a real cost. But that is a judgment about fit, not about whether he was a good or bad leader in general.
What I Will Do Differently
I supervise a small team in a hospital billing office, and I have been comparing myself to a colleague in another department who seems to lead effortlessly. Her team has long-tenured staff, established procedures and clear work queues. Mine has three new hires and a billing system that changed in the spring. I will stop using her as a benchmark and start asking which substitutes my team lacks and which of them I can build, such as written procedures for the new system.
The Question Left Open
If substitutes make good leadership hard to see, how should organizations evaluate leaders fairly across very different settings? I do not know whether there is a way to adjust for the situation that is practical enough for an ordinary performance review.
References
Kerr, S., & Jermier, J. M. (1978). Substitutes for leadership: Their meaning and measurement. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 22(3), 375-403. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(78)90023-5
Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). Sage.
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., & Bommer, W. H. (1996). Transformational leader behaviors and substitutes for leadership as determinants of employee satisfaction, commitment, trust, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Management, 22(2), 259-298. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639602200204
What the GM502 Unit 6 assignment asks for
GM502's sixth unit asks you to reflect on a seminar that compared leaders across settings. Summarize the leaders in a few lines each, keeping to what they did rather than to praise. Record the first judgment the group made and whether you agreed. Then describe how the session's framework, here substitutes for leadership, was applied to each setting, and what it changed. Include any challenge to the framework, such as research showing its limits. State where you ended up, including any part of your first view you still hold. Apply the insight to your own work in a specific way. Close with a question the framework does not answer. Two and a half first-person pages suit both the live session and its posted written option; and cite Kerr and Jermier and any research the session used in APA 7.
Inside the GM502 Unit 6 example
The reflection opens with three short portraits: a chief leading thirty aircraft maintainers on a carrier, a supervisor of eleven radar controllers and a head of sales who rewrote pitches and joined calls. The first ranking by show of hands is recorded, with the writer voting with the majority. Kerr and Jermier's list of follower, task and organizational substitutes is then run across each setting: licensed controllers and detailed procedures, a partly substituted naval division and a start-up with no procedures. The highlighted sentence states that the group had been ranking situations. A classmate's challenge brings in Podsakoff, MacKenzie and Bommer's finding that substitutes explained more variance while leader behavior still mattered. Northouse supports the shift to judging fit. The writer applies the lesson to a hospital billing team with three new hires and asks how leaders can be evaluated fairly across settings.
Where the points sit in the GM502 Unit 6 rubric
Graders of this GM502 reflection look for an accurate application of substitutes for leadership and for a traceable account of why the writer's ranking collapsed. Each setting should be examined for specific substitutes, such as training, procedures or feedback built into the task. The strongest reflections show the first judgment honestly and explain exactly why it no longer holds. Including research that complicates the framework earns credit, because it prevents the reflection from swapping one oversimplification for another. Keeping part of the original view, and saying which part, adds credibility. A practical application to the writer's own team shows the reflection has consequences. The closing question should come from a real limit of the framework. Kerr and Jermier in Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Podsakoff and colleagues in the Journal of Management and Northouse's text provide the sources in APA 7.
GM502 Unit 6 help: mistakes that cost points
GM502 Unit 6 reflections often describe the three leaders at length and add a paragraph of theory at the end. The framework should do the work of the reflection. Others conclude that leadership does not matter where substitutes exist, which overstates Kerr and Jermier and ignores later research. A common gap is failing to record the first judgment, so the change has no starting point. Some writers apply substitutes to only one setting. Practical applications are often vague. Summarize each leader by behavior, record the first ranking, run the substitutes across all three settings, note the research that limits the framework, say where you landed and what you kept, apply the idea to a team you know, ideally your own, and end with a question about fairness or evaluation that the seminar could not settle.
Get a GM502 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
List the leaders your seminar compared, the framework the session applied, and where you stood before and after; a written-alternative response does the same job as live attendance. Add the Unit 6 prompt and rubric. A model reflection follows within 24-48h and costs nothing the first time, with classmates' cases kept to role and setting. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GM502 Unit 6 questions, answered
What if the seminar did not use a named framework?
Choose the one from the current unit's reading that best explains the disagreement in the room, and say that it is being applied after the fact. A reflection that brings theory to an unstructured discussion often reads as stronger than one following a session that supplied everything. Keep the account of what classmates said accurate, and let the framework do the analyzing.
Can I compare my own former leader with the ones classmates described?
Where the prompt allows, adding a leader you worked under gives the reflection a fourth case you know firsthand, and the same framework can be run across it. Keep the addition proportionate, though: the reflection is about what the seminar did to your thinking, and a long account of your own leader can crowd out the session itself.
How much should the reflection say about my changed view?
Enough to show the reasoning, not just the conclusion. State where you stood, what argument or evidence moved you, and where you landed, and note any part of your earlier view that survived. A reflection claiming a complete conversion can read as performed; one that changed its ranking but kept a reservation usually reads as more credible.
Where can I find a free GM502 Unit 6 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM502 Unit 6 seminar reflection on ranking three leaders and applying Kerr and Jermier's substitutes for leadership, with research limits, a workplace application and APA 7 references.
What are substitutes for leadership?
Kerr and Jermier described features of followers, tasks and organizations that make a leader's behavior unnecessary or ineffective, such as extensive training, routine tasks with built-in feedback and detailed formal procedures.