Planning for the future

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Effective leadership and management

When leaders are clear about what role they are taking up, in what context and to what purpose, they are more likely to be able to flex between personal, organisational and system leadership practices.

When operating at the level of whole systems rather than organisations or individuals, there are some key factors which need to be considered to make sure that system rather than personal or organisational objectives are met. These include the following.

• Working with multiple perspectives and agendas – the ability to use active listening, inquire into the views of others and tolerate difference and uncertainty will be important to make sure some perspectives are not excluded.
• Influencing and making decisions where no one person or organisation is in charge or has more legitimacy than another – the ability to give way to others, to build trust and relationships and to work with personal authority rather than positional authority will be important as a way to ensure collective agreement and legitimacy.
• Exploring the interconnections and relationships between different parts of the system – this is as important as understanding the needs of the different parts. The ability to network, think laterally, build relationships with unfamiliar partners, make connections, explore interdependencies and suspend personal and organisational agendas will support this way of working.
• Shared solutions need to be co-created so are both unknown and emergent from the interactions between different stakeholders – the ability to manage anxiety (both personal and that of others) will be important if system leaders are to stay on task with developing shared agendas.
• A systems leadership approach challenges hierarchical leadership models in that it acknowledges the leadership role of people, either staff or those accessing services, wherever they find themselves in the system. Using a systems leadership approach means there is not total dependence on the authority of senior leaders in the hierarchy. This has particular resonance social care, where frontline workers are required to exercise leadership skills in every interaction. These practice situations often occur beyond the immediate direction and scrutiny of senior staff and are such that a more collaborative, distributed form of leadership is required.

Resources and signposting

In the ‘Dawn of System Leadership’, Peter Senge draws a distinction between the characteristics of personal, organisational and system leadership.

A practical case study of how a whole system leadership approach supported local change.

Scottish Social Services Council’s Step into Leadership website offers resources and information to develop leadership capabilities.

NHS Education for Scotland’s Leadership for Integration programme is primarily aimed at GPs and other senior health care professionals, and middle or senior managers in statutory, third or independent social care organisations, who are working in localities or health and social care partnerships. It complements and adds value to programmes offered by organisational development leads across health and social care contexts.

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Planning for the future by the Scottish Social Services Council is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://learn.sssc.uk.com.