This part of the Leadership pathway is all about developing your personal leadership style even further, and how you may support others in the workplace. The Learning is broken into three key areas as before – Click through the green bars to access them below
Leading yourself
Leading others
Leading within an organisation.
Leading Yourself
The following resources and activities will help you think more about what good leadership looks like, how to develop your own leadership, and how to think about what you personally want to get out of your leadership journey.
If you haven’t already, it might be good to think about obtaining some 360 degree feedback. This is where you ask colleagues about what you do well, and what could be improved.
Your organisation might have a template already for this, or you can make your own, or check out the SSSC Leadership Capability Feedback Tool for Frontline Workers
“What does good Leadership look like?“
Make a note of your answer to this question then access one or both of these modules
After completing these, have you added anything to your initial notes ?
Leadership Compass
It can be really useful to think about our leadership styles, and the styles of others within our teams. One tool that is often used is the leadership compass, you can undertake a self assessment of your own personal leadership style by downloading the worksheet below:
Once you have completed this exercise consider the following:
- Which point of the compass felt most comfortable for you ?
- Now think about how this shows up at work. What do you offer the team?
- Have a talk with your team about their styles and see how you can work together to compliment each other. Is there a style that’s really common?
- Is there one which isn’t represented as much?
- How can you support each other to work together and play to each others strengths?
Reflection
Have a think about your own leadership, what do you particularly well?
What are your strengths?
How do these relate to the strengths and challenges within your service?
Thinking about your place of work, what are some of the barriers and enablers to good leadership?
How can you use your strengths to address some of these barriers?
Leading Others
In this section you will consider how you support others in the workplace.
You’ll have the opportunity to explore key skills like dialogue, collaboration and the importance of a supportive workplace
To get you started, have a look at the top tips for communicating below
Do you recognise any of these and do them already?
Be Courageous: Be brave enough to ask questions, take risks, innovate and stand up for things that matter to people.
Connect Emotionally: Invite people to share how they feel and notice your own feelings within the interaction.
Be Curious: Ask questions that genuinely seek to explore feelings and experiences and that consider possible assumptions and look for the other interpretations.
Be Collaborative: Talk together, involve people in decisions, bring people on board, and develop a shared responsibility for actions.
Consider Others’ Perspectives: Actively ask questions to explore another perspective and be open to hearing such perspectives, recognise that they may not be the same as yours and feel comfortable to discuss this in an open way. Share expectations.
Compromise: Talk together about ways in which we can get the best experience for all. Think about what should happen and could happen.
Be Celebratory: Notice and explicitly say what works well and ask questions that examine why things work well.
Other Resources:
Practicing communicating with others takes practice. Have a look at these two videos to get you started
Communication is about listening as well as speaking. Have a go at practicing active listening.
Read this article and have a go at putting this into practice.
- How did it feel?
- Was your message received better?
Reflection
Have a think about the communication tips within the key skills section.
How do you use these at work?
Where are your strengths?
Is there anyone in your organisation that you could learn these skills from?
Leading within an Organisation
This theme is all about putting leadership into practice within an organisation. We’ve split this theme into two sections.
The first is all about leadership and social leadership – why is it important in an organisation?
The second theme is all about practical methods to implement change.
Social Leadership:
Practical Leadership
Watch these two webinars to explore more:
Look at these module below to explore further:
Activities and Next Steps
Contributing to Change:
Have a look at the webinar below. It offers an opportunity to explore how to create adaptive approaches to change.:
After watching the webinar, have a think about:
- Was there any new information in there?
- If so – what did it make you think about?
- Is there anything you could implement or take forward?
- Who might you need to work with to make this a reality?
- What are some of your reflections about working in this way?
- Are there any challenges or opportunities you see already?
Reflection
What networks do you use for change and sharing across organisations?
What information do you need? Where could you get this?
How do you foster a good working relationship across different organisations?
Additional Learning Opportunities:
Leading to Change
Leading to Change offers a range of leadership development programmes, opportunities and support for health, social care, and social work leaders to help you make a difference.
New Horizons
New Horizons is an online course hosted on TURAS and is aimed at new and emerging leaders and managers to support the development of their leadership capability and capacity
You as a Collaborative Leader
You as a Collaborative Leader (YaCL) is a programme addressing an appetite for leadership support for health and social care integration in Scotland. YaCL provides health and social services professionals with the skills and knowledge to collaborate across the integration agenda effectively. The programme is offered in partnership by NHS Education for Scotland and Leading to Change
Well done you have reached the end of the DEVELOPING stage of the Leadership Pathway!
We hope that you have managed to complete some of the SSSC Open Badges along the way.
Remember also that you can use any of your reflective work towards supervision, continuous professional learning (CPL) requirements.
Remember there are another 3 steps for you to explore, but the natural next step is the EXPANDING stage
