Leadership Flashcards
Define leadership and discuss its importance in providing quality healthcare
‘the art of motivating a group to achieve a common goal’
Leadership is a key aspect of quality healthcare, its importance is emphasised by the CSP framework where good leadership is encouraged.
Quality leadership is required for engagement with the clinical governance pillars, e.g. education and training and staff management.
There are many different types of leadership, each with its own benefits and challenges. Selection/ application of styles is vital to the delivery of quality healthcare
Describe autocratic leadership, its benefits and challenges.
Autocratic leaders focus decision-making with themselves, making choices based on their judgement, rather than accepting/ considering advice from the wider group/ team.
Benefits: Enables quick decision making, which can be beneficial in high intensity environments. For example, this would be beneficial to the delivery of quality healthcare in the case of CPR/ resuscitation. An autocratic leader would likely be able to take control of a stressful situation, making quick effective decisions to potentially save someone’s life. In this way, the aspects of autocratic leadership can be beneficial to the delivery of quality healthcare.
Challenges: Due to the potential lack of consideration of other viewpoints associated with autocratic leadership, it is possible that autocratic leaders cause/ create resentment from staff/ patients, and a lack of motivation/ team moral due to them feeling less valued. This cause potentially cause a higher turnover of staff, causing disruptions to healthcare delivery. For example, in a ward setting there is many different disciplines working together. If one individual were to take sole control over a patient/ case, it is likely that some key information/ options would be missed, resulting in a less well rounded care plan.
Describe compassionate leadership, its benefits and challenges.
Compassionate leaders prioritise empathy, understanding and emotional intelligence, to promote an inclusive and respectful working environment. A compassionate leader listens to, and considers the viewpoints of their staff, empowering them to work at their best.
Benefits: This style of leadership has potential benefits in reducing stress, burnout, and for ensuring that team member feel valued. From my own experience, on placement in a community setting in Bath, my practice educator showed signs of being a compassionate leader, regularly organising meetings with the team to discuss cases and promote teamwork. The results of this were clear, with team members feeling empowered to work at their best, and feeling supported, allowing them to provide quality healthcare.
Challenges: There is circumstances in which this leadership style may not be best suited. For example where decisions need to be made quickly and decisively, e.g. in A&E. Furthermore, it could be suggested that compassionate leaders could have some difficulty in enforcing accountability - if focus is placed on emotional wellbeing and inclusion, sometimes outcomes can be neglected resulting in poor service delivery.
Describe how NQPs would need to adapt their leadership styles and what qualities this would require
1: One main difference between NQPs and student physios is the management of a caseload. Due to this they may need to adapt their leadership style to be more autocratic is some circumstances. This would allow them the confidence and ability to make decisions independently. To be able to do this, NQPs must develop independence and self-management as a quality. An example of this in practice would be the expectation for NQPs in an outpatient setting to spend time things about their greatment plans to develop them independently.
2: There are also situations however, where NQPs need to be compassionate in their leadership style. For example in placement in MDTs. It was expected for all divisions to put forward their viewpoints and to agree together on the best plan going forward. This would require the NQP to be more team-centred in their approach. They would require confidence to put their ideas forward, and also self-awareness to understand when to take on board other opinions.
3: As NQPs gain experience, they may be expected to foster development in others. For example the mentorship of a student. This requires the adaptation of focusing development on oneself, to fostering the development of others. This would require a transformational leadership style to focus on motivating and inspiring others to improve. In order to do this effectively, NQPs must be patient with the student, confident in their ability to instruct, and have the ability/ consistency to model professional behaviour.
