Reflection on Leadership and Communication in IPE Team

This reflective paper analyzes the leadership traits and communication strategies within an IPE team, and their impact on team development and care plan development for a patient.

Running head: REFLECTION
Reflection
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Introduction:
The main purpose of the report is to analytically reflect on experiences related to working
within the IPE team. The report will give idea about the leadership quality within the team and
its role in promoting team development. The report will also give insight into the communication
strategies between the team that helped to improve care plan of the patient. The IPE workshop
was about stroke and depression and the key activities for the workshop was about meeting the
case study client Dan, identifying organizations to find support to Dan, develop appropriate care
plan for Dan and evaluate patient centred care via wiki. The IPE team had 10 students. Out of
these, six were nursing students who were in the third year and semester 6 conversion students.
Other members included me, a medical imaging staff and an OT staff. The OT was in his fourth
year and the medical imaging was in the 3rd year semester 1.
Leadership traits of two team members:
Two members of the team who have been identified as leaders in the team include Stefan
(OT) and Chou (nurse). Both had different leadership trait. Stefan has been found to be have the
leadership trait of commitment and innovation. This can be said because she was showing full
interest in all the activities of the workshop and responding well throughout the activities. This is
understood from her response throughout the workshop. She was the most active member of the
team who was self-confident and self-aware regarding important elements of multi-professional
health care team. Her attitude is reflective of leadership trait of commitment and Giddens (2018)
argues that effective leaders display commitment and alignment around shared organizational
vision. Stefan revealed commitment around shared goal of completing week 1 activities with the
group. During the activity 2 related to effective team work, her response revealed she has good

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awareness about factors that affects team functioning. During the activity 3 activity for week 1
too, her response revealed that she had good understanding about interaction between
professional ethics and rights of patients. Hence, her knowledge related to effective relationship
building skill and the interest in identifying innovative strategies to influence care outcomes is a
positive aspects of her leadership skills.
The other member Chou is found to share leadership within the team as he was found to
be a good communicator. His communication style during activity 2 related to discussion of
Dan’s care plan was unlike any other members. This is said because while giving response, he
was addressing to everyone. In addition, his communication style demonstrated that he favoured
getting more idea from his team members instead of communicating his beliefs and opinion to
others. Boies, Fiset and Gill (2015) supports that communication styles of a leader has direct
impact on team outcomes. Effective leaders focus on taking feedback from team during
communication to ensure that team goal is achieved. Similar type of communication style was
displayed by Chou too.
Evaluation of leadership quality and its impact on team development:
Leadership plays a vital in affecting team performance and accelerated team performance
is achieved when leaders create a positive vibes within the team and empower people at their
greatest potential. Such leaders are always prepared to challenge any issues with confidence.
Transformational and inspirational leadership displays such leadership qualities and they
motivate employees to take greater responsibility for the work (Scott et al., 2018). This
leadership quality was displayed by Chou too. By commending his team members for their
response to Dan’s case scenario and motivating them to find more idea for the betterment of

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patient, he took steps to inspire other members of the team. Instead of giving negative feedback,
he provided constructive feedback resulting in other team members to complete their part of
work with much better quality. He was also the one who gave very professional list of care plan
for Dan starting from discussion on goals, relevant organizations for care, further assessment test
and the disciplines that can be involved in Dan’s care. Such comprehensive detail was given by
no other team member. This also reflects having the quality of good insight and judgment about
work at hand. This is an important leadership quality as good judgment is an important aspect of
effective leadership as this enables them to take action in the right manner and in a timely
fashion (Fuller & Sturm, 2017). I was also impressed by Chou’s clear knowledge and judgment
regarding type of care needed by Dan. His knowledge level and communication styles inspired
me to improve my performance too. I was willing to give more useful inputs to the team. I spend
extra time in research to ensure that I could also provide valuable information to develop
effective care plan for Dan.
Identify and evaluate the therapeutic interactions between the team:
While taking part in any team based work, the process of therapeutic interaction plays a
vital role in accomplishing team goal and avoiding any conflict during delivery of the work. The
key features of therapeutic communication include implementing technique during consultation
to ensure that other members can express their feelings and ideas. This involves use of
techniques like expression, clarification and validation and using positive feedback between
communications. Therapeutic communication also requires respect for thoughts and beliefs of
each team members (Torres et al., 2017). This form of therapeutic interaction was seen through
the interaction with the team during the IPE workshop. For example during the WIKI discussion
for activity 2, one of the group member’s comment to Stefan was ‘Your negative example is

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really interesting..... I can see how that would have a massive impact on client care’. This shows
used of positive feedback during team interactions. This type of positive response was given by
almost all team members evidenced by comments like ‘This is a very good example’ and ‘This is
a great example’. Such communication style can raise the spirit of the team. In response to
Stephanie’s response regarding positive and negative aspects of team work, Chou commented
that ‘I had the same negative experience like you had’. In this case, the technique of validation is
being used reflecting that all team members are very much involved in the conversation and they
display interest in response of others. Such type of therapeutic interactions can drive team
performance.
Identify and evaluate the communication strategies utilised by the team in the development
of the care plan for the client/patient:
The overall purpose of the IPE workshop was to develop a care plan for Dan. During the
development of care plan for Dan, the team members employed various verbal and non-verbal
techniques to develop a comprehensive care plan. For example, while completing activity 2
regarding discussion of Dan’s care plan through discussion board, each member were giving
verbal response based on their expertise. Focus on giving response according to individual
discipline is a negative aspect of the discussion because while focussing on developing care plan
for patient, the focus should be to develop holistic care plan. However, nurse’s were mostly
giving from the perspective of nurse role which may not be reflective of holistic care plan. The
positive aspect of the communication was the focus to include positive feedback to ensure
everyone is inspired to identify broader goals. This is understood from Chou’s discussion who
commented that ‘We've actually discussed every aspects of it so good job! Please feel free to add
more ideas....’. Every team member was verbally appraising other members for doing a good job

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ensuring that overall the team member moved in the right track to develop a high quality care
plan for Dan. Chou’s strategy of clarification resulted in getting more better recommendation
from remaining team members.
Conclusion:
To conclude, the reflective paper gave an insight into experience of participating in IPE
workshop and discussion regarding key leadership trait and therapeutic communication displayed
by the team members. The two leadership trait identified in two members included ‘commitment
and innovation’ and ‘good communicator trait’. The therapeutic interaction inherent within team
leader includes use of positive feedback and clarification techniques to enhance the quality of
team based activities. From this experience, I have learnt about the skills needed to engage in
successful team work which will be useful while working with interdisciplinary team.

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References:
Boies, K., Fiset, J., & Gill, H. (2015). Communication and trust are key: Unlocking the
relationship between leadership and team performance and creativity. The Leadership
Quarterly, 26(6), 1080-1094.
Fuller, M., & Sturm, R. (2017). The Art of Leader Judgement in Organizations: A Qualitative
Investigation of Its Development.
Giddens, J. (2018). Transformational leadership: What every nursing dean should know. Journal
of Professional Nursing, 34(2), 117-121.
Scott, C. P., Jiang, H., Wildman, J. L., & Griffith, R. (2018). The impact of implicit collective
leadership theories on the emergence and effectiveness of leadership networks in
teams. Human Resource Management Review, 28(4), 464-481.
Torres, G. M. C., Figueiredo, I. D. T., Cândido, J. A. B., Pinto, A. G. A., Morais, A. P. P.,
Araújo, M. F. M., & Almeida, M. I. D. (2017). Therapeutic communication in the
interaction between health workers and hypertensive patients in the family health
strategy. Revista gaucha de enfermagem, 38(4).