ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking & Writing AY2018-19 Semester 1

Week 5 Tutorial 4

Tutorial Four

Critiquing Sample Case Reflections

Learning Objectives
By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to

 write comprehensive, clear, and well-organised discipline-related essays and reports

that respond to set tasks; and

More specifically, you will

 practise writing a case reflection based on Tutorial 3 (small-group collaboration on

Googledocs)
 critique sample case reflections by applying the concepts on engineering leadership
discussed in previous tutorials

Additional Reading:
1) Sucher, S., & Preble, M. (2017). Case study: follow dubious orders or speak up? An intern
contemplates whether she should compromise her values for a job. Harvard Business
Review, 95(4), 139-143.

Supplementary Resources on Reflective Writing:

1. Reflective writing: a basic introduction
2. Writing reflectively
3. Practice-based and reflective learning/writing

Online Activities and Preparation (Required)

This section must be attempted before meeting your tutor and class in the face-to-face tutorial
session. Tutorial meetings will proceed on the assumption that you have completed the
required online activities and preparation and seek to develop the work done in the online
tasks.

Please complete both tasks:

1. Practise writing a case reflection based on one of the cases you studied in Tutorial 3 (i.e.
on Carol, Terry, Bonnie or Seah) in your small groups on Googledocs. Begin your writing
with a summary description of the case, and then introduce your assessment question
and answer it by analysing and reflecting on the case experience/incident. Include in-
text citations whenever you refer to Rottmann et al (2014) and additional sources to
support your analysis and reflection. Write between 750-850 words, and include a
reference list to document all sources cited.

Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Page 1

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking & Writing AY2018-19 Semester 1
Week 5 Tutorial 4

2. One member of the group should then post your case reflection in the online class forum
for comment by other students. Each student should comment on two (2) other groups’
case reflections in the forum. Comment by asking questions to help your peers check
their interpretations (i.e. the connections they make as they move from data/experience
to conclusions about leadership).

Leadership Awareness

Class Activities 1 to 3
The following activities, adapted from Barsh (2014) and LeanIn (2018), are based on The
Centered Leadership model (Barsh, 2014). The model aims to help you lead with impact,
resilience, and fulfilment at work and in your life. These activities, taken from Part 4 of the
model – Engaging, concentrate on emphasizing how you can overcome your fears, move into
action, and take risks.

Trigger Activity (Group)

One by one, fill in the sentences below and share them with your group. Listen carefully as each
member takes a turn and say thank you when you’re done. Avoid the urge to slip into
conversation.

• Today I am feeling ...

• My next big opportunity or challenge is ...

• What stands in my way of moving forward is ...

Activity 1: Reflect on a Success (Individual)

Engaging is about reframing our fears and drawing on our strengths to recognize and pursue
opportunities that are meaningful to us. Recall a time when, against the odds, you took a stand
for something you believed and/or achieved something no one thought you could.

Putting yourself back in the moment of your success, write down your story (ideally in the
present tense). Use the following questions as a guide:

• What personal strengths have I tapped into?

• How do I feel in my moment of success?

• What is really important—what matters to me in this story?

• What result am I having? What does that teach me about myself?

Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Page 2

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking & Writing AY2018-19 Semester 1
Week 5 Tutorial 4

Activity 2: Rethink Outcomes

Step 1: Consider the outcomes of acting (Pair)

Our fears can be the catalyst for action, but they can also hold us back. In this exercise, you’ll
explore the possible downsides and upsides of an opportunity or challenge that you’re facing.

Pair up with a partner and take turns asking each other the following questions. Think about
your next big opportunity or challenge and summarize it in a sentence or two…

What worry or fear of risk may be holding you back from taking action?

What benefits are to be gained from this great opportunity? What would become possible for
you, your team, and your organization? What else? (Dig deeper!)

Step 2: Consider the outcomes of not acting (Pair)

We often focus on the risks associated with a new opportunity without comparing it to what we
have now. With the same partner, answer the following questions while she still takes notes for
you.

Then switch roles and repeat.

Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Page 3

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking & Writing AY2018-19 Semester 1
Week 5 Tutorial 4

What does the status quo look like for you (assuming you do not take the challenge /
opportunity)?

If you were to continue on this path, what would likely happen?

Over time, what would limit you if you were to continue what you’re doing now? What else?
(Dig deeper!)

When you’re finished, spend a few moments comparing the upsides of taking action versus the
downsides of doing nothing.

Activity 3: Run a Pre-Mortem

Step 1: Plan against your worst nightmare (Individual)

Taking time to imagine the worst-case scenario is a wonderful way to allay fears that
accompany risk taking. Reflect on your worst-nightmare outcome—even if it’s unlikely to
happen. Write it down below and then jot down a few ideas for minimizing or dealing with the
outcome if it ever happened.

For example, you might say: “I am giving the keynote speech of my career. My worst nightmare is
that I get on stage and freeze. If this happened, I would deal with the outcome by putting my hands
together and smiling broadly to greet the audience with love. This would help me connect to
everyone and in that way, overcome my fear. Still, I will also set intentions and have one opening
line ready!”

Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Page 4

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking & Writing AY2018-19 Semester 1
Week 5 Tutorial 4

Step 2: Share your strategy (Group)

Once everyone has reflected independently, go around the Circle one by one and complete the
following statement:

• My worst nightmare is ...

• If it ever happened, I would minimize (or deal with) the outcome by ...

Engineering Leadership, Critical Thinking & Communication

Class Activity 4
Read the following three samples of case studies and reflections. Discuss with your group the
strength and weaknesses of each sample. Consider if the student has fulfilled the requirements
of the assignment. You may want to use the rubrics for assignment 1 to evaluate the samples.

Sample One

An incident took place one semester when I was in a group of five individuals from different
faculties (SoC, FaSS, FoE) assigned with a poster presentation. This was assigned to us in Week
6 and it was due in Week 12. Due to the fact that we were all from different departments and
that we all met only in alternate weeks for tutorial classes, we rarely kept in touch. Additionally,
the fact that the project deadline was rather distant meant that our team tended to more urgent
assignments in our respective faculties. When the deadline drew near, we then found ourselves
frantically processing all the data necessary for our project. A last minute consultation with our
tutor revealed a lot of errors in our data and that our work was incomplete. With the project
meeting its impending doom, what would have been the appropriate course of action?

This is the type of situation where leadership is expected from each and every member of the
group. Leadership is something that not only a single person of a group takes but something
that each and every other takes it upon themselves (Schaetti, Ramsey, & Watanabe, 2008). This
is called personal leadership which we do not experience every single day. We usually wait for
someone to take charge in a project or a group for successful completion. However, when each
and every person takes the task upon themselves, sets deadlines and self reflects on their
progress, you are accountable for your own actions and hence experience personal leadership.
This is the main difference between leaders and followers. Usually people believe in the fact that

Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Page 5

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking & Writing AY2018-19 Semester 1
Week 5 Tutorial 4

there exists a special breed of people who are born with natural leadership talents. However, I
beg to differ. I believe leadership is not what you are born into but learnt (Kouzes & Posner,
2016). If you can set deadlines for your own activities, reflect on your progress and successfully
finish the tasks by the set deadline, not only will you feel a sense of accomplishment, but you
will feel happy that you have taken ownership of your work, held yourself accountable and feel
that you have led your own mini project. This personal leadership can then be extended to
leading a group , assigning roles to team members and setting reasonable deadlines further
down the road.

Therefore in the case I described at the start of this reflection, to prevent rushing in the last
minute, it would have been reasonable for the team to take charge at the start of the project,
with each member taking their own roles according to their own strengths and sending weekly
updates with constant encouragement to each team member. By the deadline then, we would all
have done our own “mini projects” and when it all comes together, we would have achieved the
most successful project ever.

In conclusion, it is necessary to take personal leadership of my own work every time in order to
improve myself and to improve my leadership skills so that I can rise to the occasion as a good
leader and as a good person when the situation calls for it.

References

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2016). Learning leadership: The five fundamentals of becoming an
exemplary leader. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Schaetti, B., Ramsey, S., & Watanabe, G. (2008). Making a world of difference. Personal leadership:
A methodology of two principles and six practices. Seattle, WA: FlyingKite.

Sample Two

With the 4pm deadline of the graded lab report approaching, you opened the lab report on
Google Drive and realised that there are still multiple edits to be made and the discussion part
of the report is not done. Furthermore, only two others in your five man lab group were
responding since last night. Hurriedly, you text your group to meet in school as soon as possible,
but the two are still not responding, and the rest are only able to make it at 1pm. With the
limited time you have, you hurriedly clear the edits before rushing to school to meet the rest of
the group so that there is one less thing to worry about.

On the train, you think of a few major points from the results that your group can discuss about
and hope that the report is able to be finished and printed in time. After meeting your group,
you ask for suggestions on what to write and put forward the major points you thought of and
propose that everyone does one discussion point. Within half an hour, as the work load is split,
everyone finishes their own points; the final report is read through and edited, printed and
submitted with a mere 15 minutes to spare.

Some may not think that there was leadership involved in that situation, however, I believe that
leadership need not be in big events or the big things but can be found in the small things which

Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Page 6

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking & Writing AY2018-19 Semester 1
Week 5 Tutorial 4

make up our everyday lives. Taking initiative in the situation above can be constituted as
leadership as it points everyone to a common direction that they can look to. Yet a better form
of leadership would have been to take charge from the moment the assignment was given, allow
everyone to choose the tasks they would be in charge of, set deadlines which were before the
submission date itself and ensure that everyone follows the deadlines agreed upon.

Leadership is not just assigning roles and bossing people around, it is also about being held
accountable for your team. If the team has a few members that disappear and are uncontactable
a few days before the deadline, with their work undone, what do you do? Be prepared that they
would not be doing their part would be one. But would you immediately reassign the work and
give some more allowance on the deadline you set? Or perhaps take on the extra work yourself
and be ready to put it up on the project document if your teammates really do not do the work?
But what if you are not able to handle it yourself, would you reassign the rest that you are
unable to complete? A leader needs to be able to answer all these questions and much more,
including the most important ones – am I doing what is best for my team? And how can I make
the situation better?

Of course, we all start at different stages of our leadership journey, with some being natural
leaders, where all of these comes naturally to them. But for the rest of us just starting out on our
leadership journeys, do not worry, we all start out from somewhere. Start small, with simple
things such as taking charge of group work then progress onto bigger things like graded
presentations, then co-curricular activity (CCA) committee positions.

Besides constantly improving oneself, being unafraid of making mistakes and owning up for
these mistakes, a leader can only lead if his team is willing to cooperate with him to get the job
done. If leadership seems daunting after reading this essay, do not worry. Leadership is a
journey that requires constant effort to hone the skills required to lead and the majority of us
are all just starting ours.

Sample Three

The case in question took place in a laboratory session when my lab group and I had to work on
a graded lab assignment. The clock was ticking towards the end of the lab session but the group
was in disarray and nobody knew what to do. Expectedly, we panicked and tried to finish the
task as soon as we could, rushing everything along the way. However, in hindsight, could we
have done better? The assessment question that this reflection will seek to answer is: How
might an understanding of engineering leadership have helped to create a more positive
outcome in our lab assignment? From the point of view of engineering leadership, it will be
argued that the notions of self-leadership and collaborative optimization could have made a
difference in the outcome of our failed collaboration.

First, the notion of self-leadership suggests that everyone can be a leader even if not formally in
a position of influence (Colcleugh, 2013). As Rottmann, Sacks and Reeve (2014) suggest in their
grounded theory of leadership, the nature of leadership is dispositional rather than solely
positional. Everyone can be a leader by way of a technical expert, a team catalyst or an
innovator. The implication of self-leadership for our case then is that no one should have waited

Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Page 7

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking & Writing AY2018-19 Semester 1
Week 5 Tutorial 4

for anyone to know or be told what to do. There was no reason to be in disarray and ignorant if
we took ownership of the situation and stepped up to salvage it. This is to say that there need
not be only one “leader” in the team. Every team member can lead, in his or her own ways to
contribute to the success of the team. And every team member should.

Second, the concept of collaborative optimization may suggest that we could have worked to
“build and catalyse [a] high performing team… by bringing out the best in everyone” (Rottman,
Sacks & Reeve, 2014, p.10). This means that we should have thought about each other’s
strengths and leveraged on them to point the way forward. Someone or anyone could have
acted as a team catalyst, much like the case of Carol in Colcleugh (2013), to delegate work
suitably according to the strengths of the team, or simply by working at what one excels at, in a
disciplined way and role-modelling a disposition to “do everything possible to deliver”
(Colcleugh, 2013, p.52), thus inspiring others in the team to do the same. However, process
optimization is not as simple as stepping up and taking the lead when the situation becomes
dire. It is a matter of timeliness as well. Effective leadership is not about optimising the final 20
minutes of the lab session to strive for as much work to be done as possible.

Cases such as our collaborative lab assignment present us with opportunities on a day-to-day
basis to practice engineering leadership. Reflecting on our case has taught me, from the lens of
engineering leadership theory, that remaining passive till the situation demands action is
detrimental to group assignments. Recognizing that everyone has a stake and the ability to steer
the situation towards the best possible outcome for the team is important right from the start. It
may be argued that such a mindset relies on every team member’s integrity of character and
commitment to excellence for successful realization as there may be individuals who decide to
slack off and compromise the progress of the team. However, leadership is a continuous work in
progress and everyone is at different points on that journey. Delivering the common goal is
more important, and a more meaningful way forward may be to challenge myself to be the
catalyst for the future teams I will be in.

References

Colcleugh, D. (2013). Everyone a leader: a guide to leading high-performance organizations for

engineers and scientists. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Rottmann, C.,Sacks, R., & Reeve, D. (2014). Engineering leadership: grounding leadership theory
in engineers’ professional identities. Leadership, 11(3), 351–373.

Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Page 8

CASE STUDIES Week 5 Tutorial 4
ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 -
Critical Thinking and Writing
“Case studies recount professional or work-
related situations that present participants with a
dilemma or uncertain outcome.”

“The case describes the scenario in the context

of the events, people and factors that influence it
and enables observers to identify closely with
those involved”
ECCH : European Case Clearing House
A case study requires you to analyse and write
about a critical moment (eg incident or
experience) that led to some change of
perspective or new learning. The purpose of a
case study assignment is to apply the concepts
and theories you have learnt about in class to
new situations and thus promote transfer of
learning.
CONTENT
 The case study assignment may require you to provide a short introduction of the
case. This will help “set the stage” and provide context for the rest of your analysis.
 Here is where you’ll include a case description of information pertinent to the experience or incident
(e.g., setting, participants, problems, etc.). It should answer the 5W’s: When, Where, What, Why and
Whose role?

 The main part of the assignment will involve you applying the concepts and theories
you have learnt about to the case study. This means that you will be referencing
research and theory to support your ideas.
 Here is where you’ll present your assessment question(s) that are open-ended and that allow you to
engage in quality reflections about engineering leadership (e.g., interpret what it means to be a
leader, examine the role of leadership, explore factors that contribute to effective and ineffective
leadership, etc. in engineering or engineering-related settings)
 You’ll then focus on your case reflection: your answer to the assessment question(s). You should write a
well-articulated thesis in response to your chosen assessment question(s) and support your response
with references to engineering leadership frameworks and constructs encountered in this course.
TIP
Make sure you have a good balance between describing your case study and
analysing it. Many students fall into the trap of being too descriptive when writing
about their case. Some ways to include analysis are:

 Explaining and giving reasons

 Comparing and contrasting
 Making suggestions and recommendations
 Supporting your ideas with research and/or information from sources

Adapted from Australian College of Applied Psychology (ACAP)