ECCF Masterclass 3 March 2015

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Gillian Strachan

Leadership Journey

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Some thoughts on leadership……..

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Outline 1. The context of change –

the shifting carpet

2. What does this mean for how we think about leadership? –

new steps, new dances

3. What does this mean for how we develop as leaders? –

learning to dance on the shifting carpet

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

1.The shifting carpet Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Sometimes we don’t notice that the carpet has shifted …until we fall over!

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

A challenging context… • Complexity • Pace of change • High levels of public expectation • Changing demographics • Achieving public value • Collaborative working across traditional boundaries • Co-production and interconnectedness • Diversity and equality • Global recession Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

So, what might it

feel

like?

Exhilarating Stimulating Busy Full of opportunity Anxiety-provoking Frustrating & disappointing Distressing Lack of focus Loss of meaning and alignment Loss of trust ……… Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Your shifting carpet…..

So how has the carpet shifted for you?

What does that feel like for you as a leader?

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

New steps, new dances, new world… Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

We are moving …

From “Old World” …

• Lower complexity, slower change

…To “New World”

• High complexity, fast change • Learning has a long shelf- life • The ‘senior ones’ know most • Learning has a short shelf-life • Knowledge is scattered • Somewhere ‘someone’ knows • No individual can pretend to ‘know’ • ‘More of the same’ is the rule • Innovation is the ‘rule’

Source: Obeng, E and Gillet, C (2008) The Complete Leader. London Business Press, Buckingham, p3

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Meaning shifting roles…

From “I manage”…

• My team reports to me • I have a hierarchical role • I understand what is happening • I have fixed objectives • I manage by fixing things myself • I manage from knowledge and experience

To “I lead…”

• We are part of a virtual network •

Influencing

is the way forward • I cope with ambiguity • I manage projects • I lead teams to fix things • I lead without knowledge and experience

Source: Obeng, E and Gillet, C (2008) The Complete Leader. London Business Press, Buckingham, p3

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

You don’t have to hold a position to be a leader……

“Leadership is a performing art – a collection of practices and behaviours rather than a position.” Source: Kouzes,J and Posner, B (2005) The Leadership Challenge. John Wiley, San Francisco. P 10.

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Engaging leadership • Concern for the needs of staff • Empowering staff by trusting them to take decisions • Listening to others’ ideas and being willing to accommodate them • Finding time to discuss issues despite being very busy • Supporting others by coaching and mentoring • Inspiring all staff to fully contribute to the work of the team • Actively promoting the achievements of the team to the outside world

Source: Alimo-Metcalfe,B and Alban-Metcalfe,J (2008) Engaging Leadership: Creating organisations that maximise the potential of their people. CIPD, London.

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

The Model of Engaging Transformational Leadership

TLQ 360

™

Dimensions LEADING THE ORGANISATION

Supporting a Developmental Culture Inspiring Others Focusing Team Effort Being Decisive

LEADING INDIVIDUALS

Showing Genuine Concern Being Accessible Enabling Encouraging Change

PERSONAL QUALITIES & VALUES

Being Honest & Consistent Acting with Integrity

MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER

Building Shared Vision Networking Resolving Complex Problems Facilitating Change Sensitively

© Real World Group 2011

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Distributed leadership • Keeps the person at the centre • Includes positional leaders AND leadership as a social process • Role of the positional leader is to encourage others to exercise leadership • Leadership as practices and organisational interventions, not just leader attributes • Relationship-based conversations as core business process • Developing skills to engage, collaborate, across systems and sectors (boundary spanners) Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

“ Leadership must be exercised across shifts, 24/7, and reach every individual; good practice can be destroyed by one person who fails to see themselves as able to exercise leadership, as required to promote organisational change or who leaves something undone or unsaid because someone else is supposed to be in charge. The NHS needs people to think of themselves as leaders not because they are personally exceptional, senior or inspirational to others, but because they can see what needs doing and can work with others to do it.” Source: Turnbull James, K (2011) Leadership in Context. The King’s Fund, London. p.18

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Adaptive leadership?

Where we are facing ‘adaptive’ challenges, i.e. systemic problems with no ready answers”, the solutions exist not in the single leader but rather… “

in the collective intelligence of employees at all levels, who need to use one another as resources, often across boundaries, and learn their way to those solutions

”.

Source: Heifetz, R.A. & Laurie, D.L (1997 ) The Work of Leadership. Harvard Business Review, Jan- Feb p 125.

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

What is the nature of your leadership challenge?

What behaviours will be important?

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Being

a leader • Think systemically and act long term • Bring meaning to life • Apply the spirit not the letter of the law • Grow people through performance • Self aware and authentic • Understand that talk

is

work • Give time and space to others • Put ‘we’ before ‘me’ • Take deeper breaths and hold them longer

Source: Tamkin,P; Pearson , G; Hirsh, W. and Constable, S (2010) Exceeding Expectation: the principles of outstanding leadership. Work Foundation, London.

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

It’s about you ….

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Barack Obama.

Source: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/barackobam409128.html

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

So what about me…..

Thinking about those behaviours….

Where are my strengths?

What do I need to work on?

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

And it is all about relationships…..

Relationship with self Relationship with others Relationship with organisation and beyond Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Dancing on the shifting carpet “ In

stead of seeing the rug being pulled from under us, we can learn to dance on a shifting carpet”

Thomas Crum, 1987 Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Challenges • • • • Old world can be comfortable! Doing new things involves the risk of failure and takes courage, time and energy Need high levels of tolerance of ambiguity, complexity and ‘not knowing’ Need to be modelling what we are expecting of others in the way that we work    How we are thinking about the work How we are behaving Where we focus effort Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

A

ny of us who might feel disheartened by the size of our challenges can take heart from the fact that…we don’t have the solutions because there are no solutions (yet). The answers will not be found in a report….but along the messy path of innovation.

..the most important skill needed is to take another step forward.

Source Petrie, N (2011) Future Trends in Leadership Development. A White Paper. Centre for Creative Leadership. P. 28.

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland

Thank you for listening

Quality Education for a healthier Scotland