CMI 526 Assignment Example

Introduction

Leadership practice sits at the centre of how contemporary organisations create value, adapt to change, and sustain the commitment of the people who deliver their objectives. This assignment examines the principles of leadership practice as set out in CMI Unit 526. Task 1 explores leadership practice within organisations, evaluating theoretical approaches to responsible leadership and analysing the internal and external factors that shape how leaders behave. Task 2 examines the relationship between management and leadership and evaluates the impact of different leadership styles on team cohesion and strategic objectives. Task 3 analyses the techniques and methods leaders use to lead others and evaluates how a culture of empowerment, trust, and shared vision can be developed. Throughout, the discussion draws on current scholarship and professional evidence to reflect leadership practice as it is understood today.

Introduction

Healthcare is an unusually demanding setting in which to study leadership. Authority is divided between professional and managerial hierarchies, the consequences of poor practice are measured in patient harm rather than lost revenue, and the workforce is under sustained pressure. The 2025 NHS Staff Survey, published in March 2026 and drawing on 766,285 responses, found that 58.05 per cent of staff would recommend the NHS as a place to work, down from 60.79 per cent the previous year, with reported work-related stress rising to 42.3 per cent and close to one in three staff describing themselves as burnt out (NHS Employers, 2026).

This assignment addresses leadership practice in that context. Task one accounts for practice at Ravensmoor, weighs two responsible leadership theories against each other, and works through two factors inside the trust and two outside it. Task two examines the management and leadership relationship and evaluates three styles. Task three reports on the impact of leadership within the organisation.

Task 1: Leadership practice in an organisation

AC 1.1 Examine leadership practices within organisations

Leadership practices are the recurring behaviours through which influence is exercised. Five are prominent at Ravensmoor.

Visible presence at the point of care. Senior leaders conduct structured ward walkarounds and board-to-ward safety visits. The practice is not inspection but proximity: leaders who are physically present on wards receive information that never reaches a committee. Its value depends entirely on what happens afterwards, since a walkaround that surfaces a concern and produces no action teaches staff that raising things is pointless.

Compassionate and inclusive leadership. This is the formally adopted practice model across the NHS, comprising attending to the person, understanding their situation, empathising, and helping. West argues that compassion is not a soft alternative to performance but the mechanism through which sustained performance in health settings is achieved, because staff who feel supported deliver safer care (West, 2021). At ward level the practice appears as unhurried listening during handover and as leaders acknowledging the emotional weight of a difficult shift.

Clinical supervision and professional development. Structured reflective supervision, preceptorship for newly registered nurses and appraisal. This is the practice most often displaced by operational pressure, and its erosion is visible in retention figures long before it appears anywhere else.

Collective and distributed leadership. Multidisciplinary decision making in which consultants, nurses, therapists and pharmacists exercise leadership within their own domains. The Messenger review identified the strengthening of collaborative and inclusive leadership across health and social care as central to improving the sector’s performance (Messenger and Pollard, 2022).

Related:

• CMI 526 Principles of Leadership Practices