DDHA 8113 Week 10 Leadership Development Plan Example

Four Capabilities Someone Else Can Confirm: A Leadership Development Plan With a Verifier, an Artifact and a Fixed Review Date for Each, and the Hours It Takes From Elsewhere

Student Name

Walden University

DDHA 8113: Advanced Concepts in Healthcare Leadership

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Four Capabilities Someone Else Can Confirm: A Leadership Development Plan With a Verifier, an Artifact and a Fixed Review Date for Each, and the Hours It Takes From Elsewhere

Purpose and Starting Point

Over the coming year I mean to build four specific capabilities as the neurosciences director for Calder Valley Health, the fictional system this course has followed. It draws on four findings from this course: a self-assessment that showed I invite challenge only when I am unsure of the content, an influence map that showed I accept warm support without asking for resources, an ethics case that showed my team met its obligations in the wrong order, and a conflict analysis that showed I had twice tried to mediate a dispute whose cause was structural. Each finding becomes one capability. A capability that only I can confirm is an intention, so each one below is written in terms someone else could observe, names the person who would observe it and the artifact that would prove it, and carries a fixed review date.

Research supports investing in this kind of deliberate development. A meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies found that leadership interventions produced positive effects on a range of outcomes (Avolio et al., 2009). DeRue and Wellman (2009) found that leaders learned most from challenging experiences when feedback was available, and that the benefit of challenge fell off at the highest levels unless feedback was present. The plan is therefore built around challenging assignments paired with named people who will give feedback.

Capability One: Inviting Challenge When I Am Confident

In decision meetings where I already hold a view, I will present at least two alternatives before my own, ask a named person to argue the strongest alternative and record the alternatives in the minutes. The verifier is the service line's finance partner, who attends the capital and budget meetings where my confidence is highest and who told me plainly that I had decided the last capital ranking before the meeting. The artifact is the minutes of the next two capital planning meetings, which should show the alternatives considered and who argued them. The review date is [date], after the spring capital meeting.

Capability Two: Converting Support Into Released Resources

When a department head states support for a service line initiative, I will ask in the same conversation for a specific resource, a date and the queue the request must enter, and I will follow up in writing within two days. The verifier is the telehealth director, whose warm support for the call merger had not produced a work order after three months. The artifact is a tracking list for the next two initiatives, showing each department's stated position, the resource requested, the date agreed and the date released. The review date is [date], at the go-live of the merged rotation.

Capability Three: Sequencing Obligations After Harm

When a safety event affects patients in the service line, I will make sure the patient or family most affected is contacted before any internal process review is scheduled, and I will keep a written sequence of who was told what and when. The verifier is the system's patient safety officer. The artifact is a tabletop exercise, run with the neuro ICU leadership team, in which we work through a substitution event like the drain kit case and record our sequence of actions, followed by the written sequence from any real event during the year. The review date is [date], after the exercise.

Capability Four: Diagnosing Structure Before Mediating

When two teams in the service line are in recurring conflict, I will write a short analysis of the structural conditions behind it, such as shared resources, split ownership and incompatible measures, before I schedule any facilitated meeting. The verifier is the chair of radiology, who saw both earlier rounds of mediation over the biplane room. The artifact is the joint report on the shared measure for that room, six months after the single room manager and protected stroke window begin. The review date is [date], at the six-month report.

Summary of the Plan

Table 1

Capabilities, Verifiers, Artifacts and Review Dates

Each review date is fixed in my calendar and the verifier's, and each review ends with a written note from the verifier.

What I Will Stop Doing

Development takes time, and a plan that adds work without removing any will be abandoned by the second month. I will stop attending the system's weekly operations huddle in person and will send the service line's operations manager, who is ready for the exposure; this frees about three hours a week. I will stop personally reviewing clinic scheduling templates, which the clinic managers now handle well; this frees about two hours a week. And I will stop drafting the service line's monthly newsletter, which the marketing liaison can write from my notes; this frees about two hours a month. Together these release roughly twenty hours a month, which is more than the plan requires.

How I Will Gather Feedback

In addition to the four verifiers, I will ask five colleagues to complete the observer form of the leadership questionnaire I used for self-assessment, at the start of the plan and at twelve months. Fleenor et al. (2010) note that differences between self-ratings and others' ratings carry information a leader can use, and comparing the two at both points will show whether my view of myself has moved closer to my colleagues' view.

Risks to the Plan

The largest risk is that a busy month will push the reviews aside. Fixing the dates in two calendars, mine and the verifier's, is the main protection. A second risk is that verifiers will be kind rather than accurate. I have chosen verifiers who have already been blunt with me, and I will ask each to write the review note before we meet so that it is not softened by the conversation.

Conclusion

The plan names four capabilities drawn from this course's evidence about my leadership, states each as a behavior others can observe and assigns each a verifier, an artifact and a fixed review date. It frees about twenty hours a month by giving up three tasks that others can do. In twelve months, the minutes, the tracking list, the exercise record and the joint report will show whether the capabilities exist, regardless of what I believe about myself.

References

Avolio, B. J., Reichard, R. J., Hannah, S. T., Walumbwa, F. O., & Chan, A. (2009). A meta-analytic review of leadership impact research: Experimental and quasi-experimental studies. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 764-784. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.06.006

DeRue, D. S., & Wellman, N. (2009). Developing leaders via experience: The role of developmental challenge, learning orientation, and feedback availability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(4), 859-875. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015317

Fleenor, J. W., Smither, J. W., Atwater, L. E., Braddy, P. W., & Sturm, R. E. (2010). Self-other rating agreement in leadership: A review. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(6), 1005-1034. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.10.006