I heard the phrase ‘careerism is a bad trait for leadership’ from Brent James, who is also known as the Einstein of healthcare improvement. The FMLM is a new organisation which has Leadership for medics as its major mandate; the other angle being management. The main leadership that is needed right now is in quality improvement. It is probably the ideal time to discuss intentions.
The skies over the Thames were decidedly grey and turbulent as I arrived at the Institute of Engineering and Technology to consider the theme - When Today’s Kids are Clinicians: 2030 Scenarios. Meteorological misfortune or pathetic fallacy for the stormy topic under discussion?
There are a multitude of excellent examples in Boston alone, CEOs and presidents of large organizations. There is also huge variability and free will, but at most of the high performing organizations there is a similar leadership structure.
Browsing through the NHS Commissioning Board papers (as one does) I was interested to see the emphasis put on the notion of ‘membership’ for Clinical Commissioning Groups and the importance of distributive leadership.
I don’t know exactly who coined the phrase that leadership is an activity that takes place “one conversation at a time”. It may go back to before 2000 when Susan Scott was already developing her idea of Fierce Conversations[1]. Her eponymous book, published in 2002, certainly pushes forward the idea of achieving success one conversation at a time. Since then, a Google search reveals, one-conversation-at-a-time has had a pretty viral spread, and is to be found on multiple websites in different contexts.
I was intrigued when I first heard about the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management (FMLM). As a doctor, who took the unusual step of moving into full time NHS management in 2004, I have felt somewhat unsupported by the medical establishment in my chosen path. The creation of the FMLM, suggests to me, that this may be changing.
This month’s lesson is about the importance of understanding the bigger picture, or trying to...
As the multibillion pound NHS National Programme for IT goes down the pipes and we fail to 'connect for health' clinicians, patients, and policy makers everywhere scratch their heads about how to drag NHS Health IT into the 21st,. So how to get smart, digital, improve patient care, and save money?
The topic of ‘clinical leadership’ has the habit of bringing up all sorts of responses which, with the increasing amount of airtime it’s receiving, are more and more frequently being debated. In my experience so far, views vary from those keen to understand more and get involved, to the unconverted who assume it’s just another means of a small group of clinicians drawing attention to their careers.
