The changing role of health leadership

Members of Cohort 3 reflect on what leadership means to them

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for an evaluation of what it means to be a leader in health. The crisis has highlighted what kind of leadership is effective and how leadership culture needs to be more compassionate, accepting and flexible. As a health leaders network, Sciana members have themselves been looking at the changing role of health leadership.

The path to leadership in health is different for everyone, whether they are from a clinical, research, industry or policy background – there is no linear route, and there is no set destination. It may be assumed that all Sciana members already see themselves as leaders. But that’s not always the case, as Oliver Gröne from Cohort 3 explained: “There are different kinds of leaders and different kinds of people coming to Sciana. For me, I was always just doing my work. I never considered myself to be a leader, even though I’m now running a company. I never looked at it that way.

“The Sciana programme was the first time that I looked at myself as [a] leader and began to think about what being a leader means. Prior to that, I just got on with my work, I got promoted, I ended up becoming a leader without really acknowledging that it had happened.

“Sciana has really changed how I understand my role. I am much more conscious about being a leader now. I’m not sure whether it has improved my effectiveness as a leader, but I’m certainly more aware of it. It really helped me better understand what leadership is, why I am a leader and how I can be a better leader.”

In a Sciana lecture in November 2021, Sciana Senior Ambassador David Behan described leaders as “people who inspire and motivate others to have the confidence to do things they might not have otherwise done”. Malte Gerhold, a Sciana Cohort 3 member, has also reflected on how leadership is about inspiring people and how the role of the health leader is changing: “My interest in relation to leadership is very much around how you can inspire a wider group of people, including patients, around the benefits or safety of something – and how to do this from the bottom up.

“We’re living in a world now where top-down, centralised leadership is reaching its limits. We need to look at how place-based thinking and engagement can have a role, for example, in prevention and the public health agenda. How can community action and social movement be used to influence people’s behaviour? This has been particularly relevant since 2020, in the context of the pandemic.”

The pandemic has also led to more compassionate leadership and recognition from leaders of the role of patients in improving services. Sciana member and patient representative Judith Safford said: “Leadership is pivotal to changing health care and improving the patient experience.

“In the COVID crisis, it was leadership that made the difference.”