A personal and professional development journey in clinical academic leadership.
The Florence Nightingale Foundation Leadership Scholarship provides a unique and privileged opportunity to undertake a bespoke development programme supporting the development of both personal and professional/career leadership development, accompanied by the completion of a patient care improvement project by which to embody this learning in practice.
Personal leadership development
During the course of the scholarship I undertook a range of learning activities to support the development of my personal leadership skills. These included structured programmes such as Leading Change for Organisational Renewal (Stanford University), and the High Performance Leadership programme (Cranfield University), in addition to mentoring and coaching experiences. Collectively, these opportunities provided a challenge to my preferred ways of working and leading. This has supported significant growth in my self-awareness and had direct impact on the development of strategies and resilience in leading change in the current health-care climate.
Career leadership objectives
The initial focus for my career leadership objectives was the development of a Trust strategy to build research capacity for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals (NMAHP). In addition to the development of personal skills, the scholarship supported my attendance as a visiting scholar at three international nursing research centres – considering their structure, staffing, resourcing and collaboration models. These experiences have been directly translated into practice with the establishment of a NMAHP Research Advisory Group, the implementation of a NMAHP Doctoral Forum, and an in-principle agreement for the development of a professorial appointment for nursing research. Additionally, this component of the scholarship also served to refine my own personal career objectives in relation to the development of a clinical academic career.
Patient-care improvement project
The project involved establishing an evidence-based fellows programme to support NMAHP staff to become skilled evidence-based practitioners with the capability to lead on-going EBP initiatives in their clinical settings. The programme was delivered using a matrix of formal teaching, action-based learning and 1:1 participant support. It was focused on the development of core skills and knowledge regarding critical appraisal and evidence translation into practice. Fellows conducted small scale projects to ‘test’ the impact of evidence in practice. Evaluation of the project indicates increased skills and confidence of the participants in relation to EBP techniques and satisfaction with the programme structure and delivery. Recommendations have been developed to support the on-going delivery of the programme on an annual basis.
The Florence Nightingale Foundation Leadership Scholarship supported my development through a comprehensive process of learning, self-reflection, and appraisal of options. It has involved the setting aside of long-held beliefs about personal performance, and accepting the challenge of carving a niche for myself as an occupational therapy clinical academic. The opportunity to undertake the leadership scholarship has provided me with the insight, courage, curiousness and above all, resilience, to continue my own personal leadership journey.