HA410 Unit 2 Leadership Practices Assessment Example

Course	HA410 Health Care Leadership
Unit	Unit 2
Paper type	Leadership assessment
Length	About 870 words, 6 pages double-spaced
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Purdue University Global
Program	BS in Health Care Administration
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for HA410 Unit 2

Two Disciplines, Two Different Managers: A Leadership Assessment of a Composite Rehabilitation Services Manager Whose Leadership Practices Inventory Scores Split Sharply Between Physical Therapists and Speech-Language Pathologists

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

HA410: Health Care Leadership

Unit 2 Leadership Assessment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The manager, the department and every score are composite and bracketed; the inventory's items are not reproduced, since the instrument is published and protected.

What this part is doingThe assessment refuses to average the scores, because the average would hide the only finding worth acting on.

My Role

I manage rehabilitation services at a composite [180]-bed regional hospital. I am a physical therapist by license and supervise [22] staff: [11] physical therapists, [six] occupational therapists and [five] speech-language pathologists. I was promoted from senior physical therapist [two] years ago.

The Instrument

The Leadership Practices Inventory measures how often a leader is seen to use five practices (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). Two concern setting direction, modeling values and inspiring a shared vision. Two concern how work gets done: questioning the way things are done, and giving others the trust and room to act. The fifth, encouraging the heart, concerns recognition. Each practice has six items rated on a ten-point frequency scale, so practice scores run from 6 to 60. The leader rates herself, and observers rate her anonymously. Studies of the instrument report acceptable reliability and validity across many settings (Posner, 2016). A score records how often a behavior is seen, not how well it is done.

Results

Self and observer means by practice, with observers grouped by discipline:

1. Model the Way: self [48]; PT [50]; OT [46]; SLP [39]

2. Inspire a Shared Vision: self [42]; PT [44]; OT [41]; SLP [36]

3. Challenge the Process: self [45]; PT [47]; OT [43]; SLP [31]

4. Enable Others to Act: self [51]; PT [53]; OT [47]; SLP [33]

5. Encourage the Heart: self [44]; PT [46]; OT [44]; SLP [40]

All observers averaged together: Enable Others to Act [47], close to my own [51]. Averaged across the department, I look like a manager who enables others; read by discipline, I look like one who enables people who share my license.

Reading the Gap

The largest gaps are on Enable Others to Act and Challenge the Process, and they come almost entirely from the speech-language pathologists. Occupational therapists sit in the middle. Physical therapists rate me slightly higher than I rate myself. Enable Others to Act covers trust, involving people in decisions and giving them room to choose how to do their work. Challenge the Process covers seeking new ideas and supporting people who try them. A low observer score on both suggests that speech-language pathologists do not see me inviting or backing their ideas.

What this part is doingThe paper explains what each low practice covers before suggesting a cause, so the explanation follows from the instrument, not from a guess.

Tracing It to a Behavior

I went back through a year of requests. Physical therapists asked for [nine] changes, such as new equipment or a revised schedule, and I approved [eight], usually in a hallway conversation. Speech-language pathologists asked for [five], including more time on the fluoroscopy schedule for swallow studies and a trial of a new dysphagia screening tool. I approved [two], and only after asking for written evidence each time. I did not intend a double standard. I approve physical therapy requests quickly because I can judge them from my own training. For speech-language pathology I cannot, so I asked for evidence, and the speech-language pathologists experienced that as distrust.

What the Literature Suggests

Psychological safety, a shared belief that a team is safe for taking interpersonal risks such as proposing an idea, is linked to learning behavior in teams (Edmondson, 1999). A team that expects its ideas to be met with requests for proof may stop proposing them. In my department, the speech-language pathologists brought me fewer requests in the second half of the year than the first.

One Behavior to Change

For any request outside my license, I will ask the senior clinician in that discipline to review it first and bring me a recommendation, and I will decide within [ten] working days. I will apply the same written process to physical therapy requests so the standard is visibly the same.

How I Will Know

I will track requests and decisions by discipline each quarter and repeat the inventory with observers in [12] months, looking for the speech-language pathology score on Enable Others to Act to rise toward the department mean.

Sharing the Results

I will share the discipline-level results with the whole department at a staff meeting, describe the request pattern I found and explain the change. Saying it aloud matters: the speech-language pathologists have experienced the gap for two years, and a quiet fix without acknowledgment may not be noticed.

What this part is doingPlanning to share the findings with staff treats the assessment as the start of a conversation rather than a private exercise.

Strengths to Keep

Model the Way and Encourage the Heart scored fairly evenly across disciplines, which suggests my consistency and recognition reach everyone. I will keep the monthly recognition at staff meetings and my habit of working a clinical shift each week.

Limits

Five speech-language pathologists is a small group; one person's ratings move the mean. The inventory measures frequency, not quality. The request log is my own record and may be incomplete.

Conclusion

The assessment's value lay in refusing to average. One discipline experienced a different manager from the one the others described, and the cause was a habit of approval I had not noticed.

References

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations (6th ed.). Wiley.

Posner, B. Z. (2016). Investigating the reliability and validity of the Leadership Practices Inventory. Administrative Sciences, 6(4), Article 17. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci6040017

HA410 Unit 2 instructions, in plain terms

Unit 2 typically asks students to complete a published leadership instrument, often the Leadership Practices Inventory, and to analyze the results. Prompts usually ask for the scores, a comparison of self and observer ratings, an interpretation of strengths and gaps, a link to the leader's actual behavior and a development goal. Many instructors ask students not to reproduce protected items. Expect to describe the instrument and its source, present results in a table, cite research on the instrument and at least one other leadership source in APA style, and keep the setting composite. The most useful assessments look for patterns hidden in an average, such as differences between groups of observers.

Inside the HA410 Unit 2 example

The sample opens with the manager's role and department. The instrument is described in a short paragraph that cites its authors and a study of its reliability and validity. Results appear as a list of self and observer scores by discipline for each practice. The highlighted sentence explains what averaging hides. A section reads the gap, with a margin note on explaining each practice before suggesting a cause. A year of requests traces the gap to an approval habit, and research on psychological safety explains its effect. One behavior to change, measures, sharing the results with a note, strengths to keep across all disciplines and the limits of a small sample follow.

HA410 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points

Leadership assessment rubrics in HA 410 usually award points for describing the instrument, presenting results, interpreting them, linking them to behavior, setting a development goal, citing sources and writing clearly. Instrument points depend on naming the tool, its authors and what it measures. Results points go to a clear table or list. Interpretation points reward explaining gaps between self and observers. Behavior points require a specific habit or decision pattern behind the scores. Goal points go to one measurable change. Source points need research on the tool and on leadership. Assessments that break observer scores into groups and find a hidden pattern often earn the top band, because they show real analysis rather than a summary of the report.

HA410 Unit 2 help from the desk

Assessments often lose points by listing strengths and weaknesses from the score report without explaining what caused them. Another gap is reproducing protected inventory items. Some papers set goals like communicate better that cannot be measured. Others accept the overall average without asking whether different groups see the leader differently. Present your scores, then split observers by any meaningful group, look for the largest gap and search your own records for a behavior that explains it. Choose one change you can measure and a date to retest. If your observer group is small, say so in a limits paragraph. Plan to share the findings with the people who rated you, since acknowledging a gap aloud often matters as much as fixing it quietly.

Get an HA410 Unit 2 example written to your instructions

Scores from whatever instrument your section assigned are the starting point, with observer ratings if you gathered any, plus the Unit 2 prompt and rubric. The assessment returns within 24-48h, free on a first request, reading your result against the model it measures and bracketing the department records that would test it. 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.

More HA410 papers and BS in Health Care Administration samples

HA410 Unit 2 questions, answered

Where can I find a free HA410 Unit 2 sample paper?

This page carries the full HA410 Unit 2 leadership assessment, reading a composite rehabilitation manager's Leadership Practices Inventory scores by discipline, with three sources. Your own results can be read the same way.

What does the Leadership Practices Inventory measure?

How often a leader is seen to use five practices described by Kouzes and Posner, rated by the leader and by observers.

Why split observer scores by group?

Because an average can hide a large gap between groups, such as staff from different professions who experience the leader differently.

How does psychological safety explain the HA410 Unit 2 gap?

Speech-language pathologists who met repeated demands for proof stopped proposing ideas, the pattern research on team learning predicts.

How long is the HA410 Unit 2 assessment?

About four pages in the first person, with a results table, an interpretation and one development goal.