Your Module 2 Resources

Health services across the developed world are evolving rapidly, and over the coming years some of the most wide-ranging changes are expected to occur in primary care. Primary care includes the largest number of providers, and in the UK accounts for the largest proportion of patient contacts with the National Health Service (NHS), around 300 million per year in general practice alone. To meet the needs of a changing population, adopt vital innovations, redesign for greater sustainability, and support increasing personalised and integrated care, primary care teams will need to evolve the way they work. This article looks at the new types of leadership required across primary care.

Today’s leaders face the challenge of having to lead and influence other people way beyond the boundaries of the organisations that the leader works within. They will frequently be required to lead (and be led) within partnerships made up of different organisations, with different cultures, resources, influences and powers. So what type of leadership do we need going forward?

Working across boundaries very often exposes systemic problems with no easy answers. Ronald Heifitz and Donald Laurie, thought leaders in the field of adaptive challenges and leadership and the authors of “The Work Of Leadership” call these challenges murky and say that when they intensify organisations may need to reclarify strategies, merge or dissolve businesses, or manage cross functional strife.

New research suggests that the most effective executives use a collection of distinct leadership styles—each in the right measure, at just the right time. Such flexibility is tough to put into action, but it pays off in performance. And better yet, it can be learned.

Becoming knowledgeable of collaborative and inclusive modes for addressing health concerns, including knowledge of experiences in other places, helps create a sense of possibility that new modes can work. This looks at different models and provides the basis on which collaborative leaders work on to make health and social care partnerships a success.

The unprecedented service and financial challenges facing the NHS require staff and leaders to work and behave differently. A critical skill for the future is the ability to work across services and organisations to meet the needs of the growing number of people with complex medical conditions and those who rely on care and support from different agencies. In some cases, this will involve frontline teams working to overcome professional barriers so that they can co-ordinate care effectively, whereas in others it will require senior leaders to work together to remove organisational obstacles to deliver better value for the populations they serve. In this report, Nicholas Timmins draws on the stories of 10 senior leaders to identify the skills needed to work in this way.

Adopting a coaching approach through powerful questioning – here you will find a variety of powerful questions which will support you in your role as a leader as coach.

What kind of leadership do we need to bring to bear to get the best out of our working relationships? At the personal level, it may require us to take a lead that we ourselves may not find easy. Not all collaboration is easy. In their book ‘Opening Doors to Teamwork and Collaboration’, Katz and Miller suggest there are four keys to successful collaboration:

• Lean into discomfort
• Listen as an ally
• State your intent and intensity
• Share your street corner