| Course | GM503 Leadership Theory and Practice II |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 3 |
| Paper type | Leader-member exchange study |
| Length | About 1,140 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM503 Unit 3
Eight Readers, Eight Relationships: A Unit 3 Leader-Member Exchange Study in an Admissions Office
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GM503: Leadership Theory and Practice II
Unit 3 Leader-Member Exchange Study
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The admissions office, its readers, the associate director and every score are composite and illustrative; the theory, measure and studies cited are real.
The Team
The admissions office reviews about 21,000 first-year applications each cycle. A team of eight readers, supervised by one associate director, handles applications for the colleges of arts and sciences and of business. The reading season runs from November to March. Each reader scores applications on academic preparation, writing and context, and the associate director assigns the files that need extra judgment, including scholarship candidates, appeals and applicants with unusual records. Those discretionary assignments are visible to everyone and carry weight, since readers who handle scholarship files are often promoted to senior reader.
Readers describe the associate director in sharply different ways. Three called her "a mentor" and "the reason I stayed." Two called her "fair but distant." Three said she "plays favorites."
The Theory
In leader-member exchange theory, a supervisor builds a distinct working bond with every member of the group, and those bonds can differ sharply. Some of those pairs grow into close partnerships with room to act and real give and take; others remain closer to the formal terms of the job. Over time these differences shape members' assignments, development and satisfaction (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995).
Robert Liden and John Maslyn argued that exchange quality is not a single thing but has four dimensions: affect, the mutual liking between leader and member; loyalty, public support for each other; contribution, the perceived effort each puts toward shared goals; and professional respect, the regard each has for the other's expertise (Liden & Maslyn, 1998). Their measure lets a study ask which dimensions drive overall differences.
Most exchange studies collect ratings only from members. But leaders and members often disagree about the quality of the same relationship, and those disagreements predict outcomes in their own right (Sin et al., 2009). This study therefore asked both sides.
Method
The associate director and all eight readers agreed to complete the twelve-item multidimensional measure, which rates each dimension on a seven-point scale. Each reader rated the relationship with the director, and the director rated her relationship with each reader. Responses went to me as an outside student, and only averaged results were shared with the office. I also recorded each reader's hiring year, prior admissions experience and share of discretionary files last season.
Results by Dimension
Professional respect showed the widest spread. The three readers who called the director a mentor rated professional respect between 6.3 and 6.7, and she rated them between 6.0 and 6.7. The three who said she plays favorites rated it between 3.7 and 4.3, and she rated them between 4.0 and 4.7. The two in the middle fell between. Contribution followed a similar pattern, though with a narrower spread.
Affect showed the least spread. All eight readers rated mutual liking between 4.7 and 5.7, and the director rated all eight between 5.0 and 6.0. Personal liking, in other words, was fairly even across the team.
Loyalty fell in the middle, with the three mentored readers rating it highest.
The readers who felt passed over did not dislike the director, and she did not dislike them; what divided the team was whether each side respected the other's judgment about files.
What Tracks the Differences
Hiring year explained more than anything else. The three high-respect readers had all been hired four or more years earlier, in the director's first two hiring cycles, and two had worked with her when she was a senior reader. The three low-respect readers were hired in the last two years. The director's discretionary assignments followed the same pattern: the three high-respect readers handled 71 percent of scholarship files last season.
Agreement between the two sides was high for the mentored readers and lower for the others. For two of the low-respect readers, the director rated professional respect higher than the readers did, by about a point. In conversation, she said she respected both readers' work but had not yet "seen how they handle the hard files," which is exactly the experience the assignment pattern withheld from them.
A Self-Reinforcing Loop
The data suggest a loop. The director gives discretionary files to readers whose judgment she has seen. Those readers build expertise on the hardest files and earn more professional respect. Newer readers, given fewer such files, have little chance to show the judgment that would earn them. Exchange theory predicts that differentiation, once formed, tends to persist, and the hiring-year pattern here fits that prediction (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). It also explains why the newer readers describe favoritism: they see an allocation pattern but not its basis.
How the Director Responded
When I shared the averaged results with the associate director, she was surprised by the low respect ratings from newer readers and by how closely her assignment pattern followed hiring year. She said she had been giving scholarship files to readers she could rely on during the busiest weeks of the season, which made sense to her in the moment and looked like favoritism from outside. She agreed to try two of the changes below in the coming cycle.
Limits
Eight relationships are a small sample, and ratings from one reading season may reflect that year's events. Self-reported ratings can be shaped by what participants expect to hear. The study cannot separate hiring year from other differences between older and newer readers, such as prior experience. And sharing results only as averages protected confidentiality but limits what can be reported about individual relationships.
Implications
The findings suggest the problem is not personal favoritism but a pattern of assignments that keeps newer readers from earning professional respect. Three changes would address it. The director could rotate a share of scholarship files to every reader, with a second read by a senior reader, so newer readers can demonstrate judgment. She could explain her assignment criteria to the whole team at the start of each season. And she could hold a brief review of one difficult file with each newer reader early in the season, which would let her see their reasoning directly.
Conclusion
The admissions team's sharply different descriptions of its associate director come from differences in professional respect, not personal liking, and those differences track when each reader was hired. The director's assignment pattern reinforces them by giving the hardest files to readers whose judgment she has already seen. Collecting ratings from both sides showed that she respects the newer readers more than they believe, which suggests the gap can be closed by giving them the files that would let them prove it.
References
Graen, G. B., & Uhl-Bien, M. (1995). Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective. The Leadership Quarterly, 6(2), 219-247. https://doi.org/10.1016/1048-9843(95)90036-5
Liden, R. C., & Maslyn, J. M. (1998). Multidimensionality of leader-member exchange: An empirical assessment through scale development. Journal of Management, 24(1), 43-72. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639802400105
Sin, H.-P., Nahrgang, J. D., & Morgeson, F. P. (2009). Understanding why they don't see eye to eye: An examination of leader-member exchange (LMX) agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(4), 1048-1057. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014827
The Purdue Global GM503 Unit 3 instructions
GM503's third unit asks you to study the different relationships one leader has with members of the same team. Describe the team, the leader's discretion over valued assignments and how members describe the leader. Set out leader-member exchange theory and, ideally, a multidimensional measure that separates affect, loyalty, contribution and professional respect. Collect ratings from both sides of each relationship if possible, since leaders and members often disagree and the disagreement matters. Protect confidentiality and say how. Report results by dimension rather than only as an overall score. Then look for what tracks the differences, such as tenure, experience or assignment patterns. Explain any loop by which differences sustain themselves. Note the study's limits honestly. Close with practical changes that follow from the findings. Expect about six pages with a dimension-by-member table and an appendix describing the measure, in APA 7.
Inside the GM503 Unit 3 example
The study opens with eight readers, about 21,000 applications and the associate director's control of scholarship files. Graen and Uhl-Bien's exchange theory, Liden and Maslyn's four dimensions and Sin, Nahrgang and Morgeson on agreement set up the method. Both sides completed the twelve-item measure, with averaged results shared. Professional respect ranged from 3.7 to 6.7 across readers while affect stayed between 4.7 and 5.7, and the highlighted sentence states that respect, not liking, divided the team. Hiring year explains the pattern, with the three readers hired in the director's first cycles handling 71 percent of scholarship files. The director rated two newer readers about a point higher than they rated her. A self-reinforcing loop is described, along with the director's reaction to the results, the study's limits and three changes, from rotating scholarship files to an early review of one hard file with each newer reader.
GM503 Unit 3 rubric: what earns full points
Instructors grading this GM503 study reward method and precision. Collecting ratings from both sides earns significant credit because it lets the study examine agreement, which single-source studies cannot. Reporting results by dimension shows the writer understands what a multidimensional measure adds. Accurate statement of exchange theory and of the measure is expected. Identifying what tracks the differences, here hiring year and assignment patterns, turns scores into an explanation. Describing a self-reinforcing loop shows understanding of how differentiation persists. Confidentiality and limits are graded as part of sound research practice. Practical changes earn credit when they target the mechanism the study uncovered. Graen and Uhl-Bien in The Leadership Quarterly, Liden and Maslyn in the Journal of Management and the 2009 agreement study by Sin, Nahrgang and Morgeson make up the APA 7 references.
Common GM503 Unit 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them
GM503 Unit 3 studies often rely only on members' ratings and miss what the leader thinks, which can be the most revealing part. Others report a single overall score that hides which dimension varies. A frequent mistake is assuming favoritism means personal liking without testing whether affect actually differs. Some writers present differences without asking what explains them. Confidentiality is sometimes handled carelessly in small teams, where individual results can be guessed. Limits are often omitted. Describe the team and the leader's discretion, use a multidimensional measure from both sides, report by dimension, look for patterns in tenure or assignments, explain how differences sustain themselves, share results in a way that protects individuals, state what the study cannot show and propose changes aimed at the specific mechanism, such as how valued work is allocated.
Get a GM503 Unit 3 example written to your instructions
Describe the team, each member's relationship with the leader as far as you can judge it, and anything known about how those relationships formed. Add the Unit 3 prompt and rubric plus the LMX measure your course assigns. In 24-48h a free first study returns, members identified by letter and ratings left bracketed where only your team can supply them. 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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GM503 Unit 3 questions, answered
Do I need to survey my team to write this study?
Not always. Some sections expect a short measure administered to real colleagues; others accept an analysis based on observation and your own ratings. If you do collect ratings, keep them anonymous and voluntary, and check whether your organization requires permission. Where no survey is possible, say so in the method section and describe each relationship through observable behavior.
What is the difference between LMX-7 and a multidimensional measure?
LMX-7 treats exchange quality as a single overall score, which works well for comparing relationships quickly. Multidimensional measures such as Liden and Maslyn's split the relationship into components like affect and professional respect, which helps when relationships differ in kind rather than only in degree. Your Unit 3 reading usually names one, and the choice shapes what the study can find.
Could the study examine my own relationships with a team I lead?
Often, yes, and examining your own exchanges can be revealing, though harder to do honestly. Rating your relationships and inviting anonymous member ratings shows where your view and theirs diverge, which the research suggests is common. Keep members unidentifiable, and resist explaining away low-rated relationships; the study is stronger when it asks how those exchanges formed.
Where can I find a free GM503 Unit 3 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM503 Unit 3 leader-member exchange study of an admissions team, with two-sided multidimensional ratings, results by dimension, the role of hiring year, limits, changes and APA 7 references.
Why rate the relationship from both sides?
Leaders and members often see the same relationship differently, and the gap predicts outcomes. Here the director rated two newer readers' professional respect about a point higher than they rated hers, which pointed to a fixable problem.