MMHA 6501 Week 9 Leadership Development Plan Example

From 360 Feedback to Two Behaviors: A Leadership Development Plan for Maple Terrace's Unit Manager

Student Name

Walden University

MMHA 6501: Leadership Within the Healthcare Sector

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

From 360 Feedback to Two Behaviors: A Leadership Development Plan for Maple Terrace's Unit Manager

Summary of the Feedback

This plan responds to a multisource feedback review completed for the manager of Maple Terrace's long-stay unit, where most residents live with dementia. Feedback came from four peers, eleven direct reports across all three shifts, the director of nursing and the manager's own self-assessment, using the facility's standard leadership questionnaire. Multisource feedback is useful precisely because colleagues in different positions see different parts of a leader's work, and its value depends on turning the results into specific, observed changes (Lockyer, 2003). No individual comments are quoted here.

Three themes emerged. First, raters across groups described the manager as clinically strong, fair and calm in emergencies; her self-rating matched theirs. Second, evening and night staff rated her lower than day staff on availability and on understanding their work, while she rated herself highly on both. Several noted that they rarely see her and that issues raised on off-shifts wait days for a response. Third, direct reports on all shifts said that concerns raised in the daily huddle are acknowledged but often not followed up, while the manager rated her follow-through as a strength. The director of nursing's ratings agreed with staff on both points.

Choosing Two Development Areas

Two areas were chosen because they showed the largest gap between self-view and others' ratings and because both affect the unit directly. Presence on evening and night shifts matters because the facility's call-off and turnover problems are concentrated there, and staff who never see their manager are less likely to raise problems or to stay. Follow-through on huddle concerns matters because unresolved concerns teach staff that raising them is pointless, which undermines the safety reporting the facility depends on. Other themes, such as delegating more to charge nurses, were noted but deferred, since a plan with too many goals tends to produce none. Both chosen areas also connect to retention. Turnover among nursing home staff carries real information about quality (Gandhi et al., 2021), and staff who feel unseen by their manager or unheard when they raise problems are among those most likely to leave. If the manager's presence and follow-through improve, the evening and night departures that have troubled the facility give leadership a second, independent way to see whether the plan is working, alongside the logs and ratings described below.

Goals, Baselines and Evidence

Each development area is written as a behavior, with a baseline from the manager's own records. Table 1 lists the goals.

Table 1

Development Goals

Why These Measures

The goals are deliberately behavioral. A goal such as "be more present on off-shifts" cannot be observed; two rounds a month, recorded in a log and confirmed by the shift's charge nurse or supervisor, can. Rounds will include a few minutes at the nurses' station asking what is getting in the way of work that shift, and the manager will note each concern raised in the same log used for huddle concerns, so that off-shift issues enter the same follow-up system. The follow-through goal uses the huddle concern log, which already exists but has not been used consistently, so the baseline is a count from last month's notes. A recorded response does not mean every concern is solved; it means the person who raised it is told what will happen and when.

Resources

The director of nursing has agreed to serve as mentor, meeting with the manager for thirty minutes every two weeks to review the round log and concern log. The mentor's role is to ask what the manager learned on off-shifts and which concerns are stuck, not to supervise the logs. The manager will also read Heifetz et al. (2009) on adaptive leadership, focusing on the chapters on observing and interpreting, because several off-shift concerns are likely to involve habits and relationships rather than quick fixes. Time is the main resource constraint: two night rounds a month require schedule adjustments, and the director of nursing has agreed that the manager may start later on the day after a night round.

Mid-Point Review and Evidence of Progress

At three months, the manager and mentor will review the logs and ask the evening charge nurse, night supervisor and day charge nurse what they have observed. The mentor and manager agreed in advance what progress would look like, so that the review cannot redefine success after the fact: rounds completed as planned in at least five of six months; the share of huddle concerns with a recorded response within seven days rising toward 90%; and off-shift staff able to name something that changed after a round. A brief, anonymous repeat of the off-shift and follow-through questions from the original questionnaire, given to evening and night staff at six months, will show whether ratings have moved. Changes in ratings usually lag changes in behavior, so a small rise would be encouraging. If the logs show the behaviors are happening but staff do not notice, the next step is to ask them what they expected to see, since the gap may then be about what the manager does on rounds rather than whether she shows up.

References

Gandhi, A., Yu, H., & Grabowski, D. C. (2021). High nursing staff turnover in nursing homes offers important quality information. Health Affairs, 40(3), 384-391. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00957

Heifetz, R. A., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard Business Press.

Lockyer, J. (2003). Multisource feedback in the assessment of physician competencies. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 23(1), 4-12. https://doi.org/10.1002/chp.1340230103