UTS21440 Management Skills
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · Spring 2026UTS21440 Overview
- 6 credit points
- University of Technology Sydney
- Spring session 2026
- City campus, on campus weekly
- 150 hour total workload
21440 Management Skills is a University of Technology Sydney Business School subject in the Management discipline, worth 6 credit points, with a total workload of 150 hours and weekly contact of one and a half hours of lecture plus one and a half hours of compulsory tutorial across the Spring session.
- Assessed by One individual report, one group training session and a weekly journal, with no final examination.
- Hardest step The reasoning turn: naming a framework and explaining why it applies, rather than describing what happened.
- The deadline that bites Weekly journal entries missed at their own due date are not marked in the final consolidation.
- Attendance Tutorials are compulsory and the subject states a minimum attendance requirement of 80% of tutorials in order to pass; it carries no marks and sits outside the weighted table, so confirm it on the subject site.
- How to prepare Keep a dated evidence file from Week 1: what the activity was, what you noticed, which idea it touched.
How UTS21440 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment 1: Individual Report | 40% | Individual report in two equally weighted parts, built on the Strengths Week Boot Camp. Part A is the completed structured reflective activity tables, the daily gratitude diary and your character strengths survey result. Part B is a 750 word critical summary reflection with at least two academic references in APA 7, one supporting a critique of character strengths. Submitted as a single Word document. Generative AI is not permitted. |
| Assessment 2: Group Training Session, Workplace Challenge · hurdle | 20% | Group presentation delivered as a 25 minute interactive training session plus up to 10 minutes of feedback and questions, applying your allocated weekly topic to the client workplace challenge. Slides, group cover sheet, team charter and a one page client summary are submitted the day before you present, and every member must present. Some use of generative AI is permitted for ideas, images and an outline, and must be acknowledged. |
| Assessment 3: Class Participation, Online Journal | 40% | An online journal entry of at least 250 words each teaching week from Week 2 to Week 11, plus a Week 12 entry, consolidated into one Word document with a cover sheet and a single APA 7 reference list. Weekly entries have their own submission points and their own posted due dates. Generative AI is not permitted. |
| Tutorial attendance requirement · hurdle | hurdle | Tutorials are compulsory and an 80 per cent attendance record is required to meet the requirements for the subject. Non compliance requires subject coordinator approval through the special consideration process. |
Weights are published in the subject's own teaching materials for this offering rather than in the official handbook record, which carries no assessment rows for this subject. The three weighted tasks sum to 100 per cent. The tutorial attendance condition sits outside that table and carries no marks: tutorials are compulsory and the subject states a minimum attendance requirement of 80% of tutorials in order to pass, with non compliance routed through the special consideration process, so confirm it on the subject site. Two further pass conditions appear in the table itself. The group training session must be completed to pass the subject and every member must present. Weekly journal entries not submitted at their own posted due date are not marked in the final consolidation unless approval was obtained at the time.
Assessment structure
Current UTS21440 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 06 Sep 2026 | Individual Report | Current subject assessment page |
| 25 Oct 2026 | Online journal, final consolidation | Current subject assessment page |
Dates are as published in the current subject assessment pages. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What UTS21440 covers
Management Skills runs across twelve Spring session weeks in three pillars. The first builds self knowledge, moving from self awareness and the positive turn through character strengths, workplace mental health and the emotional and mindset material.
The second covers managing the self at work: stress and resilience, mindfulness, happiness and wellbeing theories, psychological and cultural safety, and organisational compassion. The third turns outward to positive and authentic leadership and to purpose and meaning at work.
Self Awareness and the Manager's Skill Set
Three clusters of managerial skill · three layers of values · the four turn reflective model · (Weeks 1 and 2)02The Positive Turn in Psychology and Management
Why the discipline leaned to deficit · three levels of analysis · four approaches of positive organisational scholarship · (Week 2)03Character Strengths, Virtues and the VIA Classification
Six virtue classes and twenty four strengths · the inclusion criteria · the downside principle · (Week 3)04Workplace Mental Health and the Integrated Model
Protect, promote and address · primary, secondary and tertiary intervention · named work risk factors · (Week 4)05Positive Emotions and Managing Emotions at Work
Affect, mood and emotion · the circumplex quadrants · emotional labour · broaden and build · (Week 5)06The Growth Mindset and Managing Change
Fixed and growth beliefs · the organisational mindset · feedback literacy and its four features · (Week 5)07Stress, Optimism and Resilience at Work
Three outcomes after adversity · three dimensions of explanatory style · the five stage procedure · (Week 6)08Mindfulness and Workplace Performance
Two definitions · the two part model · dose and the evidence base · the privatisation critique · (Week 6)09Happiness and Wellbeing Theories
Hedonic and eudaimonic traditions · the happiness budget · wellbeing theory and its admission criteria · (Week 7)10Psychological Health, Safety and Cultural Safety
Fourteen psychosocial hazards · the four step duty · the cultural safety continuum and its seven principles · (Week 8)11Organisational Compassion
Four stages and four failure modes · two sources of suffering · five steps of compassion competence · (Week 9)12Positive and Authentic Leadership
Four positive practices · the six step journey · the four dimension questionnaire and its bands · (Week 10)13Purpose and Meaning at Work
Three levels of meaning · three job design conditions · decent work before meaningful work · (Week 11)It prepares students with theoretical and practical tools for a career in management by drawing on positive psychology and positive organisational scholarship, and it is organised into three pillars: foundations of self knowledge and understanding, managing the self at work, and facilitating self growth and change for organisational success.
The teaching sequence runs from self awareness and the positive turn, through character strengths, workplace mental health, positive emotions and the growth mindset, into stress, resilience and mindfulness, happiness and wellbeing theories, psychological health and safety alongside Indigenous and cultural safety, organisational compassion, positive and authentic leadership, and purpose and meaning at work.
There is no final examination. The subject is assessed by an Individual Report worth 40 per cent built on a structured strengths activity, a group training session worth 20 per cent that applies an allocated weekly topic to a live client workplace challenge, and a weekly online journal worth 40 per cent, alongside a separate tutorial attendance condition.
Tutorials are compulsory and the subject states a minimum attendance requirement of 80% of tutorials in order to pass, which sits outside the weighted table and should be confirmed on the subject site.
Every mark is therefore earned by writing or speaking about your own practice against named theory, which makes two things decisive: holding the theory precisely enough to name the classification, the model and the mechanism, and connecting it to something that actually happened to you.
Turning a description of a group meeting into a reflection that scores
- +1Report, in the past tense, with a specific incident rather than a summary. State what was agreed, when the gap appeared, and what you actually did about it at the time, including the thing you decided not to do.
- +1Relate the incident to something you already know about yourself or have read. If this is a pattern across previous group work, say so, and name the one condition that was different this time.
- +1Reason, in the present tense, with a named framework and a citation. Read as an organisational values mismatch, the framework predicts frustration and underperformance rather than open disagreement when a value is held but never stated, which is what the incident shows.
- +1Reconstruct, in the future tense, with an action rather than a resolution. Put the expectation in the team charter at the first meeting, and raise a missed deadline on the day rather than the following week.
Key terms
- Positive psychology
- The empirical study of what makes a life go well: which personal qualities, chosen goals, living circumstances and social arrangements support happiness, engagement, meaning and virtue. The subject stresses that this field supplements ordinary psychology rather than replacing it, and that its remit covers trauma and growth as much as thriving.
- Positive organisational scholarship
- A research stance that treats a workplace as somewhere human and collective capability is built rather than merely consumed, and asks which conditions, at the level of the person, the team and the whole organisation, let people flourish.
- Character strength
- One of twenty four measurable routes through which a virtue is expressed, defined as the psychological ingredient or mechanism that constitutes the virtue. Strengths are treated as measurable and developable rather than fixed.
- Signature strengths
- The small group at the top of a person's ranked strengths profile, reported as about five of the twenty four on average, and treated as most characteristic of that person rather than as a measure of ability.
- Reflective model
- The four turn structure taught for all reflective writing in this subject: report the experience, relate it to your own knowledge and experience, reason about it with reference to academic literature, and reconstruct your future practice.
- Integrated intervention approach
- The proposal that a workplace has to run three threads at once: cut the features of work that put mental health at risk, build up what is good about the job and what workers can do, and respond to illness in staff whatever caused it.
- Psychosocial hazard
- A hazard arising from or in relation to the design or management of work, the working environment, plant at a workplace, or workplace interactions and behaviours, which may cause psychological and physical harm.
- Explanatory style
- The habitual way a person accounts for what happens to them, described along three dimensions of permanence, pervasiveness and personalisation, and reported as learnable rather than fixed.
- Broaden and build theory
- The proposal that positive emotions broaden a person's momentary mindset, producing more creative and flexible thinking, and in doing so help build enduring intellectual, physical, social and psychological resources.
- Compassion competence
- The capacity to implement change processes in ways that increase compassion without decreasing efficiency, expressed as specific adjustments to timing, framing, routines, recognition and involvement.
- Cultural safety
- A setting in which a person's identity is neither attacked nor questioned nor treated as though it were not there, resting on respect, understanding and knowledge that both sides hold. At work the term reaches the physical setting, the relationships and the systems, so that people can take part and express their culture without meeting racism or discrimination.
- Meaningful work
- Work a person judges to possess meaning, purpose or significance, experienced as synergistic with meaning in their broader life and as enabling them to benefit the greater good through their work.
UTS21440 FAQ
Is 21440 Management Skills hard?
It is demanding in an unusual way rather than a technically difficult one. There is no final examination and nothing to calculate, so the challenge is sustained precision over twelve weeks: you have to hold a large number of named frameworks accurately and connect them to things that actually happened to you, week after week.
The weekly journal makes the workload continuous rather than concentrated, and entries missed at their own due date are not marked in the final consolidation, so falling behind is the main way students lose marks. Students who keep a short dated record after every class find the two large submissions straightforward, and students who try to reconstruct eleven weeks at the end find them impossible.
How is the subject assessed?
By three tasks and one attendance condition. The Individual Report is worth 40 per cent and combines the structured reflective activity tables, a gratitude diary and your strengths survey result with a 750 word critical summary reflection. The group training session is worth 20 per cent and asks your group to run a 25 minute interactive session applying your allocated topic to a real client challenge.
The online journal is worth 40 per cent and consists of weekly entries of at least 250 words consolidated into one document. Tutorials are compulsory with an 80 per cent attendance record required. Confirm every date and submission setting on the subject site.
What are the pass conditions in this subject?
Three, and only one of them is a weighted task. Tutorials are compulsory and the subject states a minimum attendance requirement of 80% of tutorials in order to pass, which carries no marks, sits outside the weighted assessment table, and is routed through the special consideration process when circumstances prevent it; confirm the current wording on the subject site.
The group training session must be completed to pass the subject, and every member must present in person, or online with cameras on for online classes. Weekly journal entries not submitted at their own posted due date are not marked in the final consolidation unless approval was obtained at the time.
The hurdle markers in the assessment table describe the rows of that table and are not an exhaustive statement of how the subject is passed.
Can I use generative AI in this subject?
Only in one of the three tasks, and only within stated limits. In the Individual Report and in the journal it is not permitted at all, because both are based on your own reflections, and the stated consequence of using it is zero marks.
In the group task some use is permitted, limited to generating ideas, generating images and suggesting a structure or outline, and you remain responsible for checking the accuracy of anything produced, including citations and references, and must acknowledge the use in your reference list.
What makes a reflection score well here?
Four moves in order. Report a specific, dated incident rather than a summary of a week. Relate it to your own prior experience or knowledge. Reason about why it happened using a named framework with a citation, which is the turn that carries the marks and the one most often missing. Then reconstruct your future practice with a concrete action rather than an intention to try harder.
The rubric separates engagement with the material from critical self reflection, and its failing band for the second is named as descriptive or superficial.
Do I need to have management experience to do well?
No. Almost every framework in the subject can be evidenced from a tutorial, a group assignment or a part time job, and the assessments are written on that assumption. What matters is the specificity of the incident and the accuracy of the framework, not the seniority of the setting.
A carefully analysed disagreement about who was posting work to a shared folder will outscore a vague account of a workplace you have not examined closely.
What is the most common way students lose marks?
Describing rather than reasoning. An entry that recounts the week accurately, names no framework and cites nothing has aimed at the wrong criterion, however well it is written. The second most common loss is imprecision: calling a character strength a virtue, using an everyday definition where the classification has its own, or asserting a framework without the citation.
Both are cheap to fix and both are visible to a marker in the first paragraph.
Can Sia help me with 21440 Management Skills?
Yes, as a study companion rather than as a writer, and the distinction matters here because two of the three tasks prohibit generative AI outright. What Sia is useful for is the part that is allowed and that most students skip: checking that you have the framework right before you write, asking you the awkward follow up question a marker would ask, and testing whether your reasoning turn actually contains a mechanism.
Read this whole guide free, then bring the framework you are least sure about.
How to prepare for the assessments
Treat 21440 Management Skills as a subject you accumulate rather than one you revise. Two things have to be built week by week and neither can be recovered at the end: a stock of accurately named theory, and a stock of your own recorded experience. The accumulation costs about ten minutes a week. After every class, write three sentences into one running document: what we did, what I noticed, and which idea it touched.
That file is what the Individual Report and the final journal entry are assembled from, and it is also what lets you answer the question about how your thinking evolved, because you can quote the earlier version of it. For the theory, work on precision rather than coverage.
Learn the distinctions the subject keeps: virtue against character strength, protect against promote against address, emotion against mood, engagement against job satisfaction, cultural awareness against cultural safety, decent work against meaningful work. Each of those pairs is a place where a marker can see immediately whether you read the source or a summary of it.
Then practise the four turn structure until it is automatic, and read your own drafts for tense alone, since a paragraph written entirely in the past tense has not reached the reasoning turn and one with no future tense has not reached the reconstructing turn. Finally, prepare your critiques in advance.
The subject asks you to critique character strengths in the report, supplies its own criticisms of resilience training and of mindfulness, and invites you in the final week to critique the positive approach itself. A critique conducted under a framework's own rules is worth more than disagreement, and having one ready is the difference between an entry that engages and an entry that summarises.
Your AI Management tutor for UTS21440
Stuck on a hard UTS21440 question? Sia is AskSia’s AI Management tutor — ask any UTS21440 Management Skills question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how the course is actually taught and assessed. Read this whole study guide free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
