International Leadership Week 2021

It’s International Leadership Week, and a time for celebration for all the aspiring, and great leaders out there!

The Learning Enterprise (TLE) would like to highlight the importance of leadership and coaching within health and care and as a general tool to help organisations drive change and meet today’s changing needs.

Leaders need to develop their staff to take ownership and feel accountable for their own performance. Therefore, leaders need to act as coaches.

Leaders who are coaches foster curiosity by asking the right questions, promote inclusivity by suspending judgment, and also support their colleagues by empowering rather than directing. When done correctly, coaching sparks insights into staff and reshapes their way of thinking.

There are many changes currently affecting the health and care sector including rising costs, workforce shortages, emerging technologies and a growing elderly population. Additionally, healthcare organisations are undergoing continual change such as organisational restructure, quality improvement and employee retention. Today’s healthcare leaders are challenged to think in new ways and to adjust to, and lead that change.   

The Covid-19 pandemic brought with it lots of uncertainty and change and this has encouraged some staff to take the lead without the specific training required whilst covering staff illness or shielding. Health and care businesses need to begin closing leadership gaps to increase resilience post pandemic.

The Learning Enterprise has a range of apprenticeships and leadership development courses which are designed to facilitate and embed successful leadership and coaching practices to begin or continue your leadership journey.

Sarah Robins became the professional lead for the Virgin Care Wiltshire Autism Assessment Service after completing her Level 3 Team Leader apprenticeship, and praises the programme for the skills she’s gained:

“It has developed my ability to lead the fantastic WAAS team to achieve our aims and continue to improve the service we offer.  It is important to me to lead a team who have opportunities to develop themselves and to use their unique skills in an effective way for the service.”

Natalie Groom, team leader at the Braintree Central within Essex Child and Family Wellbeing Service, is close to completing the Level 5 in Operational Management and Leadership programme. She is very positive about her programme and the experience she has gained so far:

“This course has helped me to improve service provision through making efficiencies within the system. It has given me the opportunity to gain practical skills in leadership and develop talent.”