Leaders in the NHS need to stop looking beyond the NHS for tips on how to lead in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous environments. For those of us that spent our careers working and leading in the NHS, VUCA is normal. It is business as usual, not one day is the same as the other in frontline healthcare. We make plans and fully expect them not to work to plan. Healthcare leadership is all about adaptability and working around problems we face, using the limited resources available to you in the moment.
Leaders in in healthcare need to stop beating themselves up and believing somehow that industry leadership is better. It is not, it is not worse either, it is just different and the processes that work in one sector rarely transfer well to another.
We need to start taking more lessons from each other, understanding the conditions and approaches that work in departments and specialities that we can use in our own, but always remembering that not one size fits all.
The most important lessons I learned managing a busy acute ward was:
- To be clear on what we wanted to achieve, and keep reminding myself and those around me.
- Be aware, of myself, colleagues, patients and visitors, and the changing environment
- Keep communicating, the only way to maintain awareness is to talk to each other at regular intervals, and listen to what everyone contributes to the work, not just the most qualified (everyone)
- Be prepared to change direction and plan, to achieve what needs to be achieved
- Work with what you have got, not what you wished you had.
- Look after the welfare of everyone, your team, visitors and patients, see everyone as partners with a vested interest in achieving your goal.
This sounds easy and obvious, but in the moment it is easy to get caught up in the rhetoric of how hard it is to achieve what you need to do. It is also easy to be wedded to your plan and ignore what you are hearing and seeing. When you notice that this is happening to you, it is time to take stock and take care of yourself so you can readdress what you need to do to achieve.
I see this behaviour in successful managers everywhere in the NHS community I work in, we need to stop beating ourselves up.
My message to all healthcare leaders at an operational level, is stop listening to the negative rhetoric, you have the skills an wherewithal to achieve what you need to achieve, be curious, work with everyone in your team, including your patients and visitors and keep your eye on what you can achieve, and not the big picture. Your achievement will contribute to the big picture.
Is it time we in the NHS reminded everyone how incredible at what we do we are, in spite of everything that is thrown at us.
