The Florence Nightingale scholarship has created a new adventure of which the journey has widened my personal understanding and contribution to leadership and development of others.
My longer term objectives focused upon greater potential to reach out across Kent, Surrey and Sussex and other regions. The aim being for this scholarship to enable me to:
- Enhance the use of the evidence available to promote nursing leaders to improve patient care
- Create greater leadership resilience; to include succession planning of clinical leaders and workforce innovation.
- Support the motivation of individuals, teams and organisations; through sharing the learning of applying different skills and diagnostic tools thus impacting on improving patient experience.
- To include ways of addressing health and wellbeing within the workforce to positively impact on their way of caring and doing their job better.
- Further create and actively participate in different networks through this scholarship
- Develop new professional networks across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
My personal experience included taking the findings from the intensive ‘diagnostic assessment’ to give me different insights into myself and what others felt about me too. This has gone a long way shine a light on getting the right focus on my behaviour and future leadership impact.
Participating in the Leading Change and Organisational Renewal programme has also supported my understanding of different aspects of leadership theory and how to use it in practice.
The greatest personal experience has been through RADA and Cranfield University programmes. It has given me a totally different skill set to enhance my presentation to groups and to use the power of silence creatively. High Performing Leadership at Cranfield University participants included international leaders from across all sectors. I highly recommend this experience; it was like no other and has given me much greater insight into what has shaped me to be the person I am today and how to build on this experience to be the best leader I can.
The additional opportunities of meeting with expert leaders such as the Royal College of Nursing, Monitor, Professional Network leads and integrated health and social care leaders in Northern Ireland have all contributed to the patient improvement project. The project aim was to explore;
‘How we develop our nurse leadership talent and succession plan for the future?’
In collaboration with the University of Greenwich I have led, developed and mobilised a research project to study;
- Further developing the current Director of Nursing talent
- Succession planning for the future
- Effective nursing leadership across Kent, Surrey and Sussex
The aspirational benefits from undertaking this study and moving towards a call to action were developed as follows:
- Delivering a different approach to effectively supporting nursing leaders
- Enhancing professional collaboration
- Improving patient outcomes
- Reducing duplication of effort and improved use of limited resources
- Creating a shared vision to deliver priorities to;
- Create a pipe line of future talent
- Retention of current talent
- Deliver on development opportunities
The patient improvement project will lead to a greater understanding of both the current and future leaders’ development needs, enable the system to respond and have an impact on clinical leadership which will benefit the quality of patient outcomes.
The experience of the scholarship has made possible my self-reflection and commitment to operate my leadership style differently, in particular the manner in which I collaborate, commit to projects and build upon others skill sets in the nursing leadership project.
The future response to the research findings will require strong and consistent leadership to sustain the change required and embed them to have real impact upon patient care. I believe there is the talent locally to build upon what works well and create a new generation of alternative responses. The leadership project will influence the nursing pipeline and development opportunities locally, regionally and across England.
The learning from the scholarship has had impact upon commissioners and regulators decision making in collaboration with other partners. I believe this has opened the door for me to be more creative in finding a different way to engage, demonstrate commitment and create the platform for a more effective authentic leadership style.
The Florence Nightingale Scholarship has allowed me expand on my current leadership role and to shape my future career options in a different way. I can see the opportunity to build upon my role function; using experience and networks to develop others potential too.
I would like to offer sincere thanks and gratitude to the Florence Nightingale Foundation, in particular to Professor Elizabeth Robb and the administration team, my sponsor Health Education England, Kent, Surrey and Sussex, my mentor Christina Edwards and Cranfield University lecturers, Andy Logan and Zena Me who have been instrumental in helping to shape my journey.