Leadership development


Developing your leadership skills

Different leadership skills will come more naturally to some than to others, but everyone can develop their skills through a range of learning opportunities and reflection. These skills can develop through experience and supervision, and through feedback from our own leadership actions and behaviours at work.

More formal leadership development can be undertaken as part of a course, but also dipped in and out of through accessing on-line learning, coaching and mentorship and less formal continuous professional development.   

The principles of quality improvement or PDSA cycles can be useful in honing leadership skills.

  1. Plan: Consider your choices about what is possible in your work environment
  2. Do: Try something small – have a difficult conversation, chair a meeting, step up, offer support, “follow” or support a leader
  3. Study: Reflect, seek feedback and notice the response of others
  4. Act: Decide what to do differently next time (more of something, less of something, a different choice of words or behaviour?)

 And repeat…..

A note about getting it wrong

Developing new skills or amending the way you behave is difficult. We know this as behavioural scientists. When you learnt to ride a bike, you fell off; when you first had to put in a cannula, you trembled and messed up. Recognising and acknowledging that you may have “got it wrong” is a stepping stone to getting it right, not a reason to give up. Take care with your leadership gestures, seek feedback and use others to reflect with or seek help via coaching or mentorship.

 “I’ve not failed, just found 10000 ways that don’t work” (Thomas Edison)

“A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new” (Albert Einstein)

Getting support 

Leadership can be difficult, being brave and trying out new ways of being can sometimes go wrong or be painful. Getting support from others around you, seeking feedback and leading together is safer and much more fun and in line with the emphasis on shared leadership outlined in the MLCF. There are many potential sources of this support, from psychiatric colleagues in your peer group, to colleagues from other disciplines, through to formal mentoring or coaching arrangements. Leadership courses tend to focus on group dynamics and action learning sets as a way of ensuring that attention is paid to this aspect of learning. 

Leadership resources

Below we've suggested some resources to support you develop your leadership skills wherever you are in your career.

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