Developing Leadership Competencies on Placement
During your clinical training, you will need to start describing your goals with
leadership competencies in mind. In the new Goals and Evaluation form, there is a
separate section on leadership competencies (e.g. see section 9: Organisational and
Systemic Influence and Leadership), but you can consider including leadership
competencies in many other goals and sections of the form as well. These goals
should then be transferred into your Log of Clinical Activity and thus a
comprehensive record of all your leadership experiences and competencies is
established.
Here are just some non-exhaustive examples of how to apply a leadership approach to
each section of the form. Some of these have been developed from my own clinical
experience as a supervisor and tutor and others have been adapted from the BPS
(2010) Clinical Psychology Leadership Development Framework and the Goals and
Evaluation form.
Relationships
To gain knowledge and develop of other professional’s ways of working and service
users views and develop relationships.
To gain knowledge of important and influential local networks and develop
relationships (under supervision).
To regularly reflect on team dynamics during supervision and use this to develop and
maintain effective working relationships with other team members as well as listening
to other’s perspectives.
To contribute to problem solving with colleagues by taking the lead on psychological
aspects of care.
Helping and supporting both colleagues and clients to become more reflective.
Advocate a psychological stance in conjunction with or instead of other health care
models even in difficult circumstances demonstrating values and ethics. Show strong
engagement and conflict resolution skills.
Psychological Assessment:
To lead in supervision with identifying and selecting the appropriate assessment tools.
To identify in supervision when a specific assessment may not be appropriate and/or
being mindful of the timeliness of the assessment.
To be observed by junior staff and/or non-psychologists when conducting
interventions.
Psychological Formulation
To lead in developing the appropriate formulation and then choosing the appropriate
method of sharing it with colleagues/clients/families.
To lead on the implementation of formulation in services and utilizing formulation to
enhance teamwork, multi-professional communication and psychological mindedness
in services.
To lead in developing integrative formulations using more than one therapeutic
model.
To identify when it might be appropriate not to share specific issues within the
formulation.
To lead on giving feedback on formulation to hostile teams/clients/familes.
Psychological Intervention
To lead on identifying an appropriate intervention based on the formulation.
To lead on identifying if, when and where the intervention should take place.
To be observed by junior staff and/or non-psychologists when conducting
interventions.
Psychological Evaluation
To lead on deciding if, how and when to evaluate a clinical intervention.
To lead on deciding who should be made aware of the results and by which method.
To lead on deciding how the results might best be used to improve or influence
service delivery.
To lead on the design, planning and marketing of a future potential small-scale
research project for the service.
Generalisable Metacompetencies.
Generalising and synthesising prior knowledge and experience in order to lead on
ways of applying it critically and creatively in different settings and novel situations.
Leading on the collaboration with, and identify who the relevant stakeholders are in
order to advance psychological initiatives such as interventions and research.
Discuss with supervisor and lead on devising ways to facilitate access to
psychological services.
Ability to communicate psychologically-informed ideas and conclusions to, and to
work effectively with, other stakeholders, (specialist and non-specialist), in order to
influence practice, facilitate problem solving and decision-making.
To design and write business plan with the aim of improving psychological services
in your setting.
To co-present with supervisor the business plan to the local commissioners of
services.
Personal and Professional Skills and Values
To lead on designing new ways of addressing diversity and cultural challenges within
the service.
Encourage team reflection on current/innovative practice. Enhance the credibility of
psychology in teams through engagement/conflict management and sharing stories of
effective practice.
Communication and Teaching
To lead on the design, planning, marketing and delivery of a new or innovative
educational initiative in collaboration with stakeholders and local training officers or
commissioners.
To lead on the writing and submission of a relevant psychological paper to a journal.
Organisational and Systemic Influence and Leadership (These are self explanatory
in the Goals form but some examples might include the following)
To collaborate with supervisor in any consultancy project that improves psychological
well-being within the service or a wider setting and to lead on disseminating the
findings/results.
To ‘lone’ supervise a junior or non-psychologist colleague/s using a contract and
adopting an evaluative approach.