Uncovering leadership – a personal journey through a FNF Leadership Scholarship.
I wish to express my thanks and acknowledge the support provided to me during this Leadership Scholarship by:
The Florence Nightingale Foundation who made this scholarship possible and provided excellent learning opportunities
The Burdett Trust For Nursing
Ulster University for supporting me in my application and with the time to participate fully in the learning opportunities
To my colleagues for their feedback and encouragement during the scholarship
To Marie, Shannagh and Shane for their support to apply for and undertake this scholarship through all its opportunities and challenges
To all my fellow Scholars for all their companionship, encouragement and support during an excellent 18 months, I look forward to working with you all in the future again.
When I applied for the Scholarship I had held my present position, as Head of School of Nursing for six years and over that time the School had been very successful in its achievements. However, the more I thought on what could possibly be achieved in the future I realised I needed to move beyond a management orientated role and further develop my knowledge and skills in leadership. Despite being in a major role in a university I had achieved this without ever undertaken any sustained leadership education, beyond a few one-day courses on topics such as the theory of leadership, chairing meetings, team working and having difficult conversations.
- Personal leadership development
The Leadership Scholarship was a well balanced combination of opportunities and challenges with a lot of support during the time of the Scholarship in order to make the most of the learning that was available. I found that through the experiences within the Scholarship I gaining a clearer understanding about the difference between leadership and management. I can to realise the long tem vision of leaders and the importance of having a plan for going forward and with collaboratively with colleagues at local, regional, national levels and international levels in order to move forward in a more strategic context.
Through the Scholarship I have had many real opportunities for learning and the experience of applying this learning to practice. The key learning for me was appreciating in a real sense the importance of listening and how this often contributed to more successful plans going forward and solutions to challenges. I also became much more aware of the importance and how to take a more strategic view and work as a member of a much wider team at the level of regional and national influences. It also highlighted to me and helped me in taking clear steps to support successions planning within the services in which I work.
- Career leadership objectives
The Scholarship provided me with real opportunities to think about future leadership roles that I may wish to develop or engage in and through this I reappraised and raised my expectations of my future roles and have started to plan accordingly. Perhaps the most insightful learning was the opportunities to learn about me as a person and the importance of being authentic in any leadership role.
- The patient care improvement project that is being worked on during the Scholarship.
My project within the Scholarship related to the care of people with learning disabilities who have contact with general hospitals in Northern Ireland. This is an area I have been working with for many years and while progress has been made at the level of local hospitals, the overall progress has been patchy and not clearly embedded across services in Northern Ireland. During the Scholarship I have used the learning about strategic planning to taking a wider perspective has to how such a project could fit into the overall service priorities in Health and Social Care Trusts, beyond my previous focus on people with learning disabilities and with hindsight I had not fully appreciated the wider ‘safeguarding’ agenda for service managers. I have become a member of the Public Health Agency (PHA) Strategic Health Improvement Group for People with Learning Disabilities in Northern Ireland and within this I chair a forum focusing on people with learning disabilities who have contact with general hospitals. The priorities for the work plan have been identified in response to the publication of an RQIA Report in December 2014 and a workplan for the next year has been developed. Within this it has been agreed for the first time that a more regional focused approach will be developed in respect of producing regional resources for staff within hospital and community services.