RCPA Annual Care Seminar 2014
The Revolution will be Improvised:
New approaches to leadership and how they can
help you
Debbie Sorkin
National Director of Systems Leadership, the Leadership Centre
Somerset County Cricket Club, Taunton, 26th November 2014
Debbie.sorkin@localleadership.gov.uk
New approaches to leadership:
What this presentation covers
•Why leadership matters: because of the external context
•Why leadership matters: because of the way it’s defined
•Systems Leadership – a new approach and a practical response
•Systems Leadership – research, development, support
•Lessons from Systems Leadership – practical steps you can take to
strengthen leadership and build your service
Why leadership matters: because of the
external context
• External environment for social care characterised by increasing
complexity and difficulty
• Struggle to match growing demand with smaller resource pot: e.g.
£3.53bn taken out of social care budgets 2010-14; over 500,000
people whose care needs are not now being met by local
authorities (ADASS survey 2014)
• Difficulties in making the case for social care and getting a hearing
at national level, and at getting this acknowledged by the public
• At the same time, changes in public expectations – personalisation,
co-production, independent living
• Implications of integration – multiple stakeholders and audiences
In times of change/difficulty, good leadership
can be a lifeline
To help you manage the funding pressures – at just the time demand is
growing: both private and public sector issue
To help you do more – and more complex - with less
To be comfortable working with a wider group of stakeholders – CCGs,
public health, personal budget holders, housing, planning
To be able to work with adaptability/innovation - reconfiguring services,
working with new client groups, providing flexible care models
To re-inculcate the old virtues and values – dignity, compassion –
emphasised especially post-Winterbourne, Mid-Staffs: see Cavendish
Review, Driving Up Quality Code, Oldham Review
The basis of leadership: behaviours
Not just about authority at the top of
organisations
It’s a practical understanding – and
awareness – about how you do what
you do, and the impact on others
So it’s about behaviours, and taking
responsibility for them
And it’s everyone’s business – people
working at all levels in all sectors
“People do not experience our
values, they experience our
behaviours”
Bill Mumford, CEO, MacIntyre
Leadership in adult social care: The Leadership
Qualities Framework
Guide to what good leadership looks
like
Describes what good leadership
looks like in different settings and
situations
Defines good leadership for people at
different levels:
oFront-line staff
oFront-line leaders
oOperational leaders
oStrategic leaders
Basis in values and behaviours that
flow from them: written in plain
English to be accessible
The model extends beyond social care – it’s the
basis of a culture that works across systems
Social
Care
Health
Public
Health
Social
Work
So you can have Systems Leadership – crosssector, shared, ceded, partial, transformational
About leading: when you’re not in charge
when you need to ask
when it’s complex
when you have no money
Systemic – i.e. not piecemeal or divided
into silos - and based on shared ambition
Participative – i.e. involving many people’s
energies, ideas, talent and expertise
Emergent – i.e. allows for partial/clumsy
solutions, able to work with uncertainty
...and based on trust/relationships –
So back to behaviours
Lessons from Systems Leadership:
research, leadership development, practice
Research:
Systems Leadership:
Exceptional
leadership for
exceptional times
Leadership
Development:
Leadership for
Change
Practice:
Systems Leadership –
Local Vision
Systems Leadership research
•
Ghate, D., Lewis, J., and Welbourn, D.,
Systems Leadership: Exceptional
Leadership for exceptional times. The VSC,
Nottingham, UK, 2013
• Synthesis paper brought together
evidence and case studies from 7 source
papers from England, USA, Canada,
Australia and Denmark
• Research includes literature review, indepth interviews with 29 leaders working
across public services; case studies;
reviews
• Key findings identified ways of
describing Systems Leadership; the best
ways to achieve it; personal leadership
styles of people who did it well; and
conditions it needed to flourish
Lessons from Systems Leadership research:
factors that enable it to flourish
•Common vision or ambition: willingness to cede organisational goals
•Focus on place-based initiatives and outcomes
•Strong/honest relationships; accountability; allow for different views
•Combination of political and organisational commitment
•Role authority not sole source of legitimacy: influence, not power
•People tolerate risk and accept multiple potential pathways
Lessons from Systems Leadership research for
your workforce
• Willingness to align around a shared purpose or ambition
•Able to build engagement/relationships and really listen
•Preference for outcomes over processes
• Not being bound up with role and with a willingness to take risks
• Able to work reasonably well with conflict and uncertainty
• Having a strong commitment to a service in a particular place
Lessons from Systems Leadership practice:
Systems Leadership – Local Vision
National programme: 35 projects
in England, including 5 in SW
Projects focus on integration or
wider wellbeing issues
Topics also include mental health,
inter-generational obesity, alcohol
abuse and social isolation
Support via Enablers on the
ground and access to networks/
information
More funded projects planned –
you can get involved
Examples from Local Vision and Pioneer
Programmes
Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole:
outcomes include:
’Better Together’ programme to develop
coherent local system: commitment to
shared vision and pooled budgets,
involving commissioning and provision;
developing multi-disciplinary locality
teams; joint resource planning; work with
LEPs on workforce issues; bid for
integrated social care record system
Wiltshire: outcomes include:
Health and social care coming together in
overall Systems Resilience Group; three
demonstrator sites for integration starting;
looking at longer-term partnerships with
vol sector and better T&Cs for social care
Lessons from Systems Leadership for your
service: Get involved and get connected
• Connect with your Clinical Commissioning/wider Systems Groups:
position social care as part of the solution, working with healthcare:
Wiltshire:
LA support for employment contracts in home care;
looking at longer partnerships with voluntary sector
W Cheshire:
LA supporting social care providers to strengthen
community links, to reduce social isolation
• Work with LA/Emergency Services to use data for predictive value
DCLG:
Role of fire services – duty of wellbeing
W Cheshire:
Springboard programme
• Connect with your Health and Wellbeing Boards:
Suffolk:
public support for reformed mental health services
Lessons from Systems Leadership for your service:
Use the data: it may be easier than you think
Local Vision programmes:
Nottinghamshire MASH/W Cheshire
Springboard programme
New White Paper on Data Sharing:
“Towards Tailored Public Services”
- more data-sharing across services
The Centre of Excellence for
Information Sharing –
www.informationsharing.co.uk –
Engagement Managers who work
locally with commissioners/providers
Lessons from Systems Leadership for your
service: Go direct
• Connect with NHS Trusts and other stakeholders directly
• Example: Shropshire Partners in Care, working with local NHS
providers and health/social care commissioners:
Development Days
Direct transfers between hospitals and care homes
Funding located for GPs to visit care homes with
emphasis on prevention
Care providers brought into planning process for winter
pressures
•Social care as source of innovation:
Health hotels
Community links
Social assets and social capital
Lessons from Systems Leadership for your service:
develop your teams
See leadership as for everyone,
and as a craft to be developed
Think about who might have be
suited to Systems Leadership, at
any level
Try it out – set people a wicked
issue and ask them who might be
in the system, what might work,
what they might see
Focus on behaviours/relationships
Use coaching and support
networks
Lessons from Systems Leadership for your service:
Public Health is your friend
New role of Public Health – focus on
“the health of the public”
New locus in Local Authorities
Key role in brokering, facilitating and
supporting relationships
Working with social care providers on
public health initiatives – e.g. Coventry
Local Vision programme to raise levels
of physical activity in the city
PHE as data source: Older People’s
Health and Wellbeing Atlas –
http://www.wmpho.org.uk/olderpeople
atlas/default.aspx
Lessons from Systems Leadership for your service:
Measure something
Wiltshire Council Systems Thinking
Unit: Children’s Service Review
Police Service Review
Ask your Staff, Service Users and
Carers/Relatives
What is interesting to you?
South West Peninsula AHSN:
www.swahsn.com
West of England AHSN:
www.weahsn.net
You don’t need to be an academic
or have a research grant - you can
link up with Academic Health
Science Networks/Education
Measure something interesting and
you’ll find something interesting
Lessons from Systems Leadership for your service:
Celebrate and influence: stand up for social care
Social care as key driver of local
communities and economies
Social care as growth sector
Social care as local employer
Social care as community hub/link
Social care as source of innovation
Social care as a source of good
news stories for local media/MPs/
Councillors/HWBBs
Social care staff as people to be
celebrated
Be a Systems Leader: build and develop
leadership within and beyond your organisation
• Base ideas of leadership on behaviours
• Use leadership frameworks to underpin behaviours and drive culture
• Use Systems Leadership approaches to go beyond your
organisation/sector
• Start small and use what you have – often more than you think
• Make connections and build relationships; think beyond traditional
roles
• Develop your people
• Just look to make progress; allow for time and keep going
Everyone has a part to play:
Systems Leadership is about all of us
Because everyone can do
something about changing what
they do and how they do it.
So everyone can be a leader –
and a Systems Leader - to some
degree.
Everyone can have a go, and
everyone can make a difference.
And everyone can be a force for
change and a force for good.
Systems Leadership – more information
www.localleadership.gov.uk
Debbie.sorkin@localleadership.gov.uk
The Future will be Improvised http://www.localleadership.gov.uk/docs/Revolution
%20will%20be%20improvised%20publication%20v
3.pdf