Exploring practice leadership in intellectual disability services: a concept analysis

The practice of health and social care workers who support people with intellectual disabilities is paramount to the quality of life and autonomy of those they support. The practice leader, usually a front-line manager, has a central role in creating a positive organisational culture that values person-centred care, fosters staff empowerment and promotes continuous learning and improvement to ensure positive outcomes for service users. The authors of this article conducted a concept analysis to identify the attributes of practice leadership in intellectual disability services and thereby support staff working in this field to reflect on the attributes of this type of leadership. The authors detail the concept analysis process and discuss the three essential attributes of practice leadership in intellectual disability services that they identified from the literature – embedding service values, being person-oriented and delivering active support.