| Course | C210 Management and Leadership Capstone |
|---|---|
| Task | Task 2 |
| Paper type | Leadership development program proposal |
| Length | About 1,000 words, 3 pages |
| Format | APA 7 |
| School | Western Governors University (WGU) |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for C210 Task 2
From Best Clinician to First-Time Manager: A Twelve-Month Program to Build the People Skills of New Unit Leaders at a Composite Hospital, With the Business Case and an Evaluation Plan
Student Name
School of Business, Western Governors University
C210: Management and Leadership Capstone, Task 2
Course Instructor
Month Day, Year
From Best Clinician to First-Time Manager: A Twelve-Month Program to Build the People Skills of New Unit Leaders at a Composite Hospital, With the Business Case and an Evaluation Plan
Organization Overview
Lakeview Regional Medical Center, a composite nonprofit hospital, has 420 beds, about 3,100 employees and a regional trauma center. Its mission is to provide safe, compassionate care close to home. Care is delivered through 58 frontline units and departments, each led by a frontline manager: nurse managers on inpatient units and supervisors in pharmacy, imaging, laboratory, environmental services and food service. These managers supervise between 12 and 80 employees each and are responsible for staffing, scheduling, budgets, quality measures and staff development.
Current Management and Leadership Development
Lakeview has no structured development program for frontline managers. New managers attend a two-day orientation covering payroll, the scheduling system, human resources policies and budget reports. After that, development depends on individual directors, some of whom coach their managers closely and some of whom do not. The hospital pays for an annual leadership conference for about ten managers, chosen by seniority. There is no assessment of leadership skill, no mentoring program and no follow-up after orientation.
Current Process and Its Gaps
Most frontline managers are promoted from within because they were excellent clinicians or technicians: the best nurse on the unit becomes its manager. Interviews with 14 managers found a consistent pattern. They felt prepared for the technical and scheduling parts of the role but not for leading people: holding difficult conversations, coaching, running team meetings, leading change and managing conflict among staff. Several described learning to manage by trial and error, and three said they had considered stepping back to staff roles in their first year. Directors confirmed that managers escalate people problems they should resolve themselves.
Business Need
The gap has measurable costs. Registered nurse turnover at Lakeview reached 21% last year, and exit interviews name the manager as a reason for leaving in about a third of cases. At an estimated replacement cost of $56,000 per registered nurse, including recruitment, orientation and temporary staffing, turnover among registered nurses alone cost the hospital about $14 million. Units with the highest turnover also had the lowest staff engagement scores and higher rates of patient falls. Four of the last 11 new managers left the role within two years.
Research links these outcomes to leadership. Cummings et al. (2018) reviewed 129 studies of nursing leadership and found a consistent pattern: managers whose style centers on relationships had nurses who were more satisfied and healthier and units that worked better, whereas managers who attended to tasks alone saw weaker results on the same measures. Turnover research similarly identifies treatment by supervisors and the quality of the working relationship among the causes of leaving that organizations can influence (Hom et al., 2017).
Proposed Program
The Lakeview Frontline Leadership Program is a 12-month program for all managers in their first three years, beginning with a cohort of 20. Its design follows a meta-analysis of 335 samples, which found that leadership training improved reactions, learning, transfer to the job and organizational results, and that effectiveness was greater when programs used needs analysis, feedback, multiple delivery methods including practice, spaced sessions, on-site location and face-to-face delivery (Lacerenza et al., 2017).
Objectives: participants will conduct effective coaching and performance conversations; lead team meetings that invite staff input; apply a structured approach to leading change; use unit data to make decisions; and build psychological safety on their units.
Needs analysis: each participant completes a multisource feedback survey at the start, rated by their director, peers and staff, which identifies individual development priorities.
Content and delivery: six one-day workshops held on-site every two months cover leading people, communication and difficult conversations, teams and psychological safety, ethical leadership and just culture, data-driven decisions and leading change. Each workshop uses short teaching, case discussion and role-play practice with actors or peers. Between workshops, participants complete a project on their own unit, such as reducing call-light response time, and meet monthly with a mentor, an experienced manager from a different department.
Feedback and support: participants receive individual coaching sessions after their feedback survey and at six months, and directors attend a briefing so they can reinforce skills on the job.
Costs: facilitator time, coaching, the feedback survey, actors and backfill for managers attending workshops total about $240,000 for the first cohort, or $12,000 per participant.
Implementation Timeline and Sponsorship
Two executives, the head of nursing and the human resources vice president, will sponsor the program, which signals to directors that manager development is a priority rather than an optional extra. In the first quarter, the program team will be formed, facilitators and coaches contracted, mentors recruited and trained, and the first cohort selected from managers in their first three years, with priority for units where turnover is highest. The first workshop will be held in the second quarter, followed by workshops every two months. A second cohort will begin after the first cohort's six-month review, so lessons can be applied before the program grows. Directors will be asked to protect workshop days by arranging coverage in advance, and backfill costs are included in the budget so that attending does not leave units short-staffed. At the end of the first year, graduates will be invited to serve as mentors for later cohorts, which builds the hospital's own capacity and reduces reliance on outside facilitators.
Evaluation Plan
Evaluation follows the four levels long used to judge training: reactions, measured by participant surveys after each workshop; learning, measured by skill assessments during role-plays; behavior, measured by repeating the multisource feedback survey at 12 months; and results, measured by comparing participants' units with units of managers not yet enrolled on registered nurse turnover, staff engagement scores and manager retention. If the program reduced turnover on participants' units by even two percentage points, the savings would exceed its cost.
Conclusion
Lakeview promotes its best clinicians into management and then leaves them to learn leadership on their own, and the result is costly turnover of staff and managers. The proposed program meets that business need with a design drawn from research on what makes leadership training work: needs analysis, practice, spaced sessions, feedback and on-the-job projects, evaluated at every level from reactions to results.
References
Cummings, G. G., Tate, K., Lee, S., Wong, C. A., Paananen, T., Micaroni, S. P. M., & Chatterjee, G. E. (2018). Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the nursing workforce and work environment: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 85, 19-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.04.016
Hom, P. W., Lee, T. W., Shaw, J. D., & Hausknecht, J. P. (2017). One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 530-545. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000103
Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2017). Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686-1718. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000241
What the C210 Task 2 instructions ask
In the second C210 task you design a management or leadership development program for an organization. Most versions ask for an overview of the organization, a description of how it develops managers now, the gaps in that process, the business need the program answers, the program itself, an implementation timeline with sponsorship and a plan to evaluate results. Evaluators expect the current state to be described honestly, including what already works, before any gap is named. The business need carries the most weight, so it should rest on the organization's own numbers, such as turnover, engagement or vacancy costs, rather than general claims about leadership. The program should follow from the gaps, with each element matched to a skill managers lack. Research on what makes development programs effective belongs in the design section, cited and applied.
How this C210 Task 2 example is built
The paper begins with the hospital's size, mission and the range of frontline managers, from nurse managers to food service supervisors. Current development is described plainly: a two-day orientation on payroll and scheduling, informal coaching that depends on each director and a conference for a few senior managers. The gaps section reports what interviews with 14 managers found, a consistent lack of preparation for leading people. The business need section converts turnover into dollars and links it to exit interview data that name the manager. The program section follows a meta-analysis of leadership training and explains each design choice, including spaced workshops and practice. Sponsorship by two executives, a quarterly timeline and the evaluation plan close the proposal. Margin notes show where each rubric aspect is met.
Where the C210 Task 2 rubric puts the marks
The C210 Task 2 rubric scores each aspect as competent, approaching competence or not evident. The organization overview aspect wants enough context to judge the program's fit. Current development and gap aspects look for an accurate picture of what managers receive now and where it falls short, supported by evidence such as interviews. A business need aspect asks whether the program solves a problem the organization can measure, and here turnover costs of about $14 million carry that weight. The program aspect rewards a design whose parts map to the gaps. Timeline and sponsorship aspects want named owners and a sequence, not a wish list. The evaluation aspect looks for measures at more than one level, ideally reaching results such as retention. APA citations and clear professional writing are scored as well.
C210 Task 2 help: what sends it back
A frequent return on this task comes from a program that could fit any company. Tie every element to a gap you documented, and say which gap it closes. Some writers skip the current state and jump to the proposal, which leaves the gap analysis without a starting point. Business needs are often stated as opinions about morale; replace them with the organization's own data and a cost estimate you can explain. Evaluation plans tend to stop at participant surveys, so add behavior change and business results with a comparison group. Timelines sometimes list months with no owners, which evaluators read as unfinished. Keep sponsorship specific by naming the executives and what they will do. Finally, check that the costs in Task 2 match what you present to leaders in Task 3.
Get a C210 Task 2 example written to your instructions
Send the task instructions and rubric aspects from your C210 course of study. We write a custom leadership development program to those exact aspects, returned in 24-48h. The first custom sample is free.
More C210 papers
Other MBA sample papers
- C208 Task 1 Change Strategy Report
- D435 Task 2 People Analytics Report
- C200 Task 1 Personal Leadership Evaluation
- C209 Task 1 Mission, Vision and Values Analysis
C210 Task 2 questions, answered
What business need should a C210 Task 2 program address?
One the organization can measure and would pay to fix. The sample uses registered nurse turnover and its replacement cost, then shows that exit interviews link much of it to how new managers lead.
How is a C210 leadership program evaluated?
At several levels, from reactions to business results. The sample surveys participants after workshops, assesses skills in role-plays, repeats multisource feedback at twelve months and compares turnover with units whose managers are not yet enrolled.
Is the C210 hospital real?
No. Lakeview Regional Medical Center was invented for this proposal, and its numbers are illustrative. The research on leadership training and turnover is real and cited, and your own proposal should draw on an organization you know.
Should C210 Task 2 include a budget?
Include the costs your instructions request and keep them consistent with Task 3. The sample prices the first cohort at about $240,000 and compares that figure with the cost of the turnover it aims to reduce.
Where can I find a free C210 Task 2 sample paper?
The hospital leadership program proposal is printed above with margin notes. Send us your organization and the development gap you see, and we will draft your first custom C210 Task 2 proposal at no charge.