LEAD 6011 Module 2 Reflective Analysis Using a Reflective Model Example

The Heat Meeting Nobody Attended: A Six-Stage Reflection on Overruling a Community Health Worker's Advice, Using Gibbs's Reflective Cycle

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD6011: Leadership as a Reflective Practice

Module 2 Assignment

Instructor Name

October 19, 2026

Introduction

My Module 1 definition located leadership in relationships, not in a job title. This paper holds that definition up to an incident in which I did the opposite. Using the reflective cycle Gibbs (1988) laid out, six stages that end in a concrete plan, I examine a decision I made last June as the health education manager in a composite county health department. The aim is not to confess but to learn something I can use.

Why a Structured Model

Reflection-in-action, in the well-known distinction (Schön, 1983), is the thinking a professional does while events unfold; reflection-on-action is the later look back at what happened and why. What follows is the second kind, and a structured cycle helps because unstructured reflection tends to circle around feelings or to jump to solutions. Mann et al. (2009), pooling studies of how doctors, nurses and other clinicians are taught to reflect, concluded that the evidence base was still largely theoretical but that reflection appears at different depths and can be developed, and that supportive conditions and guidance seem to help learners move beyond description. A model such as Gibbs's supplies some of that guidance by forcing each stage in turn.

Stage 1: Description

Each summer our section runs a heat-safety campaign for neighborhoods where many residents work outdoors in agriculture and construction. Last year I planned a community meeting in one colonia for a Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. at the community center, with a presentation by our epidemiologist, Spanish interpretation and cooling kits to give away. Rosa, the community health worker who has worked in that neighborhood for six years, told me that most adults would be at work at 10:00 and suggested a Sunday afternoon after Mass at the parish hall. I kept the Tuesday time because the epidemiologist and the interpreter were available then and because the community center had already been booked. Four residents came, all of them retirees. We gave away 11 of 120 kits.

Stage 2: Feelings

At the time I felt pressed and slightly defensive. The grant required a documented community event by June 30, and arranging Sunday staff time meant overtime approvals I did not want to request. When Rosa raised the timing I felt she was making my job harder. Afterward, standing in a nearly empty room, I felt embarrassed, mostly in front of Rosa, who did not say anything and did not need to. Recognizing the defensiveness matters, because it shaped the decision more than any scheduling fact did.

Stage 3: Evaluation

Some things went well. The materials were good, the interpretation was excellent and the four residents asked useful questions. The grant requirement was met on paper. Almost everything that mattered went badly: the people at greatest risk, working-age adults who labor outdoors, were absent; the kits stayed in boxes during the hottest weeks of the year; and a trusted community health worker watched her knowledge be set aside. The event satisfied the grant and failed the neighborhood. The campaign's later door-to-door visits reached many more people, which showed the materials were not the problem.

Stage 4: Analysis

Why did I overrule the person who knew the neighborhood best? Three reasons stand out. First, I let an administrative deadline define success, which is the transactional view of leadership I criticized in Module 1. Second, I treated expertise as something that comes with a title: the epidemiologist's availability counted, while Rosa's six years of relationships did not. Third, I made the decision quickly and alone, in a five-minute conversation in a hallway, which left no room for the questions that might have changed it.

Seen through my revised definition, the incident is a clear case of leadership failing as a relational process. The knowledge needed to reach the neighborhood existed in my section. The relationship between Rosa and me did not carry it to the decision, partly because I held the authority and partly because the hallway conversation gave her no real opening. That second point is uncomfortable. Rosa did speak up; I simply did not treat her advice as information that could change my plan.

Stage 5: Conclusion

In hindsight, I could have asked the deputy director for an extension of a few days or requested the Sunday overtime, which would have cost perhaps $400. I could also have asked Rosa a single question, "What time would most people be able to come?", and treated her answer as the starting point. The general lesson is that when I am under time pressure, I default to the options that are easiest for me rather than those that serve the community, and I discount advice that adds work.

Checking the Reflection With Rosa

A reflection written alone can flatter the writer even when it admits a mistake, so before writing the action plan I asked Rosa for twenty minutes and told her I was examining the June meeting for a course. Her account differed from mine in one important way. I had remembered our conversation as a brief exchange in which she mentioned the timing once. She remembered raising it twice, the second time with a list of three employers whose shifts ended at 3:00 p.m., and she remembered my answer as "We'll make it work." She had not pushed further, she said, because the last time she disagreed with a manager about a community event, she was left off the next planning group.

Her account changes the analysis. The problem was not only that I discounted her advice under pressure; it was that our section had already taught her that persistent disagreement carried a cost. That is a feature of the climate I lead, not of one hallway conversation, and it makes the first action below more important than I had realized.

Stage 6: Action Plan

Three actions follow. First, any community event will be scheduled by the community health worker for that area, with my role limited to approving staff time and budget. Second, before I decline advice from a team member, I will ask one clarifying question and wait a day if the decision can wait a day. Third, I have asked Rosa to plan this year's heat meeting in the same neighborhood, and we have scheduled a Sunday event after Mass; the overtime request has already been approved. I will compare attendance and kits distributed with last year's figures and discuss the result with her. Because Rosa's account showed that disagreement had carried a cost in the past, I will also say plainly at the next staff meeting that advice which complicates my plans is welcome, and then prove it by acting on some.

Conclusion

Gibbs's cycle kept me from stopping at the embarrassment or jumping to a new rule. Moving stage by stage showed that the failure was not about scheduling but about whose knowledge counted when I was under pressure. That is a leadership lesson, not an administrative one, and it connects directly to the definition I wrote in Module 1. The next test will come this summer, at a parish hall on a Sunday afternoon.

References

Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic.

Mann, K., Gordon, J., & MacLeod, A. (2009). Reflection and reflective practice in health professions education: A systematic review. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 14(4), 595-621. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-007-9090-2

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.