HLSC605 - Leadership in Health Care

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Teaching organisation

Unit rationale, description and aim

Leaders in healthcare must develop sound knowledge and skill in leading service transformation through transformation of self and others. Today’s leaders require personal leadership characteristics as well as the ability to facilitate others to achieve their potential, through role modelling, supporting and empowering. This unit is necessary for future leaders who can lead others in planning, implementing and evaluating strategies and tools designed to resolve complex problems and optimise health for diverse population communities, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, among others, through innovative health administration practices that shape and improve healthcare systems.

The aim of this unit is to introduce students to contemporary theory-based leadership practices in order to develop knowledge and skill necessary for leading health service transformation.  

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

Content

Topics will include:

• Leadership frameworks/theories/models to guide practice improvement, including:
• leadership theories/models
• application of leadership theories/models to the health care environment
• Leadership strategies for practice improvement
• components of effective and ethical leadership
• influence of leadership in contemporary health care organisations, including
• socio-political
• legal
• economic
• technological influences
• The person as health care focus
• diverse cultures, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, spiritual backgrounds, values, beliefs, education, economic background
• human flourishing
• person/family-centred care – multiple dimensions
• legal, ethical and communication aspects of relational care
• issues of technology and information systems use in person-centred care
• Leadership strategies for organisational innovation and change
• models/theories of change
• enablers/resistance/barriers to change
• creating climate for innovation and change
• building political and organisational support for change
• organisational/practice policy development
• staff development and education
• Leadership strategies from a global perspective
• systems thinking
• communicating and negotiating within/across teams, services, sectors
• engaging and enabling consumers and communities
• building coalitions across silos, organisations and sectors
• ethical implications of effective leadership.

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

ACU Online

As postgraduate students who are already health practitioners, students will have varying experiences of leadership in the health care environment. In this unit, students will have the opportunity to reflect on leadership practices and challenges, to explore issues around equity and diversity and to analyse ethical and collaborative decision making. This teaching and learning strategy will support the development of effective and ethical leadership practices which can have a significant impact on health outcomes. 

This unit utilises an active learning approach whereby students will participate in online discussions, interacting with peers through asynchronous online discussion forums. This unit is informed by adult learning principles in that the learning and teaching strategies will provide students with foundational leadership knowledge and skills that can be applied in the workplace. Teaching and learning strategies utilised in this unit will support students in meeting the aims and achieving the learning outcomes relevant to this unit as well as to the broader course learning outcomes.

Modes of delivery in this unit include online modules via the online learning platform, online readings and group activities including online discussions about leadership practices and challenges, and self-directed learning. These modes of delivery assist students in linking theory to leadership practice and in developing shared meanings through online experiential reflections, discussions and online debate.

Multi-mode

As postgraduate students who are already health practitioners, students will have varying experiences of leadership in the health care environment. In this unit, students will have the opportunity to reflect on leadership practices and challenges, to explore issues around equity and diversity, and to analyse ethical and collaborative decision making. This teaching and learning strategy will support the development of effective and ethical leadership practices which can have a significant impact on health outcomes.

This unit utilises an active learning approach whereby students will participate in classroom discussions and interactivity with peers through attendance class-based sessions. This unit is informed by adult learning principles in that the learning and teaching strategies will provide students with foundational leadership knowledge and skills that can be applied in the workplace. Modes of delivery in this unit include face-to-face lectures, online readings, class-based individual and group activities including discussions and debate, and self-directed learning. These modes of delivery assist students in linking theory to leadership practice and in developing shared meanings through experiential reflections, discussions and class-based debate.  

Assessment strategy and rationale

To pass this unit, students are expected to submit two graded assessment tasks. In addition, students must achieve a cumulative grade of at least 50% across both assessments. The assessment strategy used allows for the progressive development of knowledge and skills necessary for the student to be able to consider leadership practices and challenges, evaluate ethical leadership approaches and apply effective leadership practices to improve health outcomes.

To become an effective leader in a health care environment, the student will be supported via the online learning platform to develop a sound theoretical basis upon which contemporary leadership approaches and challenges to effective leadership can be assessed and evaluated. Students will be further supported to collaborate with peers via an online medium to develop leadership strategies that can be applied in the workplace from within an ethical framework. Students will be further supported to be able to apply their knowledge of ethical and effective leadership practices to improve health outcomes in a variety of health care settings. 

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

There is no required text for this unit.

The following texts are recommended:

Barr, J., & Dowding, L. (2019). Leadership in health care (4th ed.). London: Sage Publications.

Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2022). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development (7th ed.). California: Sage Publications.

Northouse, P. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (8th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Other recommended references:

Gopee, N., & Galloway, J. (2017). Leadership and management in health care (3rd ed.). London: Sage Publications.

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

Wood, J. M., Zeffane, R., Fromholtz, M., Wiesner, R., Morrison, R. R., Factor, A., McKeown, T., Schermerhorn, M., & Schermerhorn, John R. (2019). Organisational behaviour : core concepts and applications (Fifth Australasian edition.). Queensland: Wiley.