All great leaders know they never stop learning and recognise the need to make time to reflect on their leadership style with their peers.
The Leadership for Empowered and Healthy Communities programme aims to just do just that by helping senior leaders and clinicians across social care, health and beyond to explore the challenges and opportunities of a community-based approach to leadership.
Over the last 20 years Clenton Farquharson has become an expert in accessibility issues and social justice, working in a variety of sectors and disciplines, but he welcomed the time to develop his leadership skills as a participant and co-facilitator on the programme.
“The reason why I wanted to be part of the programme was purely, I suppose, selfish reasons,” reflects Farquharson. “Most leadership programmes talk about doing stuff to people, but normally the people their work affects are not in the room.
“I wanted to be part of the programme because I felt people who use services are leaders themselves, and being a member of the National Co-Production Advisory Group, which is part of Think Local Act Personal partnership, and now being a member of the Coalition of Collaborative Care, I thought I could offer a broader and more practical perspective”
Farquharson was recently made an MBE for services to disabled people, but finding some much needed breathing space in his busy life was beneficial.
“The programme creates space for people to think about the culture that they’re working in at the moment, and how to change it.
“It’s also about creating communities – and our purpose on the course was to remind people it’s about getting better results together – with us, being part of the solution – and that’s our mantra on the programme to remind people of that.“
The programme offers a series of one-day workshops, action learning sets, one-to-one leadership coaching sessions, a Myers-Briggs analysis of personality style and a specialist 360 degree feedback diagnostic.
“There’s a technique I use called humble inquiry and it’s basically about asking not telling,” says Farquharson. “A lot of people think about empowerment but it isn’t something you can give. Finding out by being curious, asking questions of people, it’s about facilitating and enabling people.
“One of the biggest things I picked up from the course was people are for some reason seeking permission to be empowered, so it’s helped me to take more control and responsibility myself in changing things.”
Since completing the programme, Farquharson has used his new skills to set up a business.
“With colleagues I set up a disabled people’s user led organisation called Community Navigator Services. I came back to our organisation and have used the skills I learned. We were then successful in getting support from Skills for Care’s innovation fund.
“We developed a pilot scheme to help frontline staff understand what personalised care and support really means – both for staff and people receiving services. So we got people together in a room that would normally not talk to each other, to co-facilitate what the behaviour would look like and need to be for person-centred care to flourish.
“So all the skills I’ve learned have been translated into this pilot project. We’ve had really great feedback from working with the council, providers of domiciliary care, people who use services, carers – getting them in the room. Co-production can be messy, it can be risky, but it’s well worth doing.
“What we’ve learnt on the course is we’re helping other people to be leaders. Because we’re all leaders – leadership means to give control, rather than taking control. It’s about creating other leaders.”
And would Farquharson recommend other aspiring community leaders to sign up for the course?
“Most definitely – everybody’s a leader. When I first started I was quite and scared of the term leader because I always looked at the boss as the leader, and the commander of everything, and that you were the follower, but leadership is all of us.”
Leadership for Empowered and Healthy Communities is a joint venture between Skills for Care, Thames Valley and Wessex NHS Leadership Academy, the Department of Health, Think Local Act Personal, ADASS and the Local Government Association. The next programme will run from April 2016 to November 2016 and you must apply by 17 March 2016. Apply for a place by contacting Karina Croyston at karina.croyston@lehc.org.uk
Content on this page is produced and controlled by Skills for Care, sponsor of the Guardian Social Care Network leadership, learning and development hub
