Promoting the Role of the Clinical Nurse Specialist.
THE FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE FOUNDATION LEADERSHIP SCHOLARSHIP FINAL REPORT
Professor Fiona Irvine
Jenny Jones Chair in Nursing and Head of Nursing, University of Birmingham
2015 Florence Nightingale Foundation and Council of Deans of Health Scholar
I would like to thank The Florence Nightingale Foundation, the University of Birmingham and the Council of Deans of Health for their generous support, without which I would not have had the opportunity to complete this invaluable leadership programme.
Particular thanks go to Professor Elizabeth Robb and Professor Jayne Parry for their encouragement throughout the programme.
I am very grateful to my mentor, Sir Keith Pearson who generously gave his time to me. Sir Keith offered me wise advice and guidance throughout the programme and facilitated networking and development opportunities for me. Importantly, he also continuously challenged me to advance my leadership capability during the programme.
Thank you to Lizzie Jelfs for facilitating a number of opportunities to meet and learn from academic leaders and to the many people who shared their knowledge and expertise with me during the year.
Finally I wish to thank Philippa Bridgeman and Sarah Logan for their resolute support of the clinical nurse specialist work that we completed as part of the patient care improvement project.
This report gives detail of my experience as a Florence Nightingale Foundation leadership scholar and offers an account of how the scholarship facilitated my development as a leader. The report will outline the key activities and programmes of learning that I undertook and will consider their impact on my approach to leadership.
The scholarship provided me with a wealth of opportunities that, following intensive profiling activities, were personalised to meet my development needs and address any areas in which I particularly needed to advance. It is rare to be able to undertake a scholarship that is individually tailored and this distinctive approach ensured that I could gain the maximum benefits from the scholarship. Thus I was able to explore successful leadership through a new lens and modify my working practice to become a more insightful and influential leader.
The most marked outcome of the programme for me has been the development of my self-confidence and belief in my leadership abilities and this breakthrough has enabled me to advance my personal, political and strategic awareness.
The personalised nature of the scholarship, which commenced with an intensive profiling activity with Sue Machell, highlighted my main strengths and identified areas where I could develop. This was an enlightening process, and one that revealed areas of strength that I had not previously recognised and personality traits that hitherto I had never acknowledged. Therefore, in itself the profiling exercise made a significant contribution to my development since it set me on a path that I would not ordinarily have considered.
Professor Liz Robb, the CEO of the Florence Nightingale Foundation is an astute individual, who knows how to gain the most from people. Her ability to network and capitalise from influential leaders from a wide range of backgrounds across the UK was evident when she secured Sir Keith Pearson as my mentor for the programme. In offering me such an erudite and inspiring mentor, she ensured that I would be pushed to gain new insights and create new opportunities and thus develop beyond my expectations. As a consequence, I elected to undertake a range of programmes and experiences including:
- Leading Change Through Organisational Renewal
- Westminster Experience
- RADA Communication Skills for Leadership
- Co-consulting group
- International visit to Australia and New Zealand to study approaches to academic and clinical practice and to establish new collaborations
- A series of visits to established academic leaders and to senior nurse leaders across the UK to understand how they navigate their roles successfully.
In addition, as a requirement of the scholarship I have undertaken a patient care improvement project whereby I have worked with a small group of Clinical Nurse Specialists to help with the advancement of their role within one NHS Trust.
As an academic leader it was also important to me that I could reinvest into the Florence Nightingale Foundation, some of the advantages that I secured through the programme, to benefit other scholars and future leaders. To this end, I worked in collaboration with my co-scholar, Dr Sally Hayes, to run a writing workshop for FNF scholars and we are now exploring the possibility of co-editing a book relating to leadership with Jo McCormick, a third leadership scholar.
The report describes the impact that each of these activities has produced in terms of my leadership development and draws on this experience to indicate how I anticipate continued development of myself and others for the future.