Picture Source: 16 Personalities
Do you/did you follow a certain leadership style/model?
No, I don’t think I ever did. I read about styles, obviously, and thought about them, (my Master's dissertation was on leadership and nursing) but when it came to being a leader and operating, the situation I was in was much more important to defining how I approached leading than a reliance on any style. I believe that leadership is absolutely contextual. That different situations, different environments call for different approaches, different styles and to be a good leader requires an ability to lead in different ways.
What do you think is important when students are trying to become leaders or be better leaders?
Being clear about what you want to achieve with your leadership is one thing. Is it to help people through a specific situation at a specific time? Or is it how you want to influence across a wider sphere and have a greater impact? Think about what is possible for you and what is reasonable for you to influence at each stage in your career. Don’t set the bar too low, but don’t set it too high for your situation either! Learning to lead takes time and practise, it takes reflection and self-examination, it takes an ability to be flexible in your thinking and in your approach, to be able to ‘slip and slide’ between different styles and ways of operating depending on the context you are leading in.
Also, I would say take steps to learn about yourself. What excites and motivates you? What presses your anxiety buttons? What have been the situations where you feel you have made an impact? What were the disappointments? Explore these things – with help if necessary – and work out how you react in different situations and how you can learn to react in a steady and positive way, whatever the stimulus might be. Knowing yourself really well is never time wasted – and it’s essential as you become more senior.
All through my early career I used mentors and once I became more senior, I used a coach. The coach really helped me to avoid some of the mistakes I made earlier on in my career which would have been more problematic later on. He was so constructive, but never let me get away with anything – especially my propensity to be self-indulgent! He taught me how to see that it was futile to beat myself up about not being able to change other people all the time, and how to step away and look for the things I could change, and how I could change them. To de-personalise things, if you like – it was revelatory and changed my working life.
So, I would say – know yourself, find a good coach, and listen to them. I had the same one for the last 25 years of my career – he was seminal to my success, mostly because he came to know me so well. He was also not related to healthcare at all. That was a big leap for me in itself – to trust someone who was not part of what I saw as ‘my world’. And to help me realise there was more than one world for me!
Do students need a role or position to be a leader, do you think a role/position helps to put into practice leadership skills/qualities?
This is a tricky question. I would go back to what I was saying about recognising where and when you can exercise leadership. In a learning/seminar group you can make sure everyone contributes, you can encourage quieter colleagues, you can facilitate achievement – those are leadership skills. In practice you can be a role model whatever stage of your career you are – that’s also a leadership skill. If you can speak up in front of others and ask for clarification of something, or challenge something you’re not sure about calmly and professionally – those are leadership skills. Quite often it means you are doing things that others are too nervous to do, or too afraid. You’re helping them at the same time as helping yourself. All of those are leadership skills that don’t need a particular position for you to exercise them and it’s good to hone those skills as you go along.
It’s important to remember that leadership doesn’t come with role or position. Often people think it does, and that just because you’re in a particular job, people will automatically listen to you, or do what you want them to, or change something you think is important, or think the way that you do, have the same values and priorities etc. And they may for a while, but not in the long term unless you’re demonstrating actions and behaviours and results that they can look to and respect, and want to emulate, and want to stay working around. Leadership may be an expectation in a role or position but being in that position won’t make you a leader. And if you’re in a leadership position, people have a habit of not cutting you any slack for inexperience or give you much time to learn how to do it. It’s tough! You need to be prepared before you take the step into a ‘formal’ leadership position.
What is your advice to students looking at developing their leadership skills/qualities?
All through your career you can watch and learn from others – who’s good at it, who’s not so good. Who thinks they’re good, but they’re not? Who can lead in the good times, but hasn’t got a clue in the bad? Who brings a vision and helps you all to live it? Who just comes to work every day? Learn these lessons well and store them up to discuss with your mentor or your coach, explore what works and what doesn’t, and why. I think talking about leadership is one of the best ways to learn about it, especially talking with people who know about it and are good at it. So, get your teachers to invite leaders to come and talk to you – not lecture you, but let you ask questions of them – any questions. Suggest people they might ask. Not necessarily those from the top of organisations, but those at all levels. Even your own peers who have chosen to be student reps, or active in the union. They will have experiences you can learn from. And of course, you can read about it. There are so many books on leadership. Later on, you may have the opportunity for courses – but choose carefully.
Work on your confidence. Know your subject area, build your clinical expertise and expand your knowledge base. If you know what you’re talking about it gives others confidence in you and that’s an important part of being seen as a leader.
How do students navigate the minefield of apposing leadership styles/models to find one that suits them and their patients?
I think I’ve talked about that already. Explore the different styles but don’t feel you have to choose one or be one ‘type’ of leader. There will be ways of working that you feel comfortable with and that’s great but remember, different situations need a range of approaches, and different people certainly need different approaches. I have never thought it helpful to say you are ‘this’ type of leader or ‘that’ type.
June Girvin is retired from employment but still writes and comments on all things nursing, does the occasional lecture but mostly lets others get on with it. She was educated as a nurse at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham and joined the Register in 1976. She had a twenty-five-year career in the NHS, finishing as Director of Nursing in an acute Trust and then made a transition into education, becoming Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Oxford Brookes University, where she spent sixteen very happy years. She was awarded an Emeritus Professorship in Nursing by Oxford Brookes on her retirement in 2017. On the 16 Personalities test, June can vary between Commander and Defender depending on how she is feeling when she answers the test questions.
For a great, free, open lecture June done a few years ago on leadership and nursing, see below: