Common Purpose training helps HITs develop their leadership skills

Common Purpose ran an ‘exploring leadership immersion experience’ on behalf of Bristol Health Partners on 17 and 18 January, for Health Integration Teams.

The training brought together Health Integration Team (HIT) directors, workstream leads, PPI members, GPs, plus key members working in the health and social care sector in the Bristol region, to explore Leading Beyond Authority, broaden their horizons as leaders and encourage collaborative leadership across sector boundaries.

The immersion approach is a method for building the capacity of leaders to understand leadership from different perspectives. It provides a challenging yet safe environment for leaders to test out new ways of working and to receive constructive feedback from peers from different organisations. The experience builds the individual’s capacity to lead across boundaries, also building trust and challenge in a senior team of peers, which can be taken back into their organisations and sector.

Although the immersion only lasted one and a half days, the impact of the experience will be long lasting, leading not only to behaviour change within the sector but also to continued connections outside.

The participants were asked to make a difference and add value to a challenge set by two Bristol City Council Cabinet Members, Fi Hance, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing, and Clare Campion-Smith, Cabinet Member for People.

The challenge was: ‘How can the public help to shape the future of Health and Social care?’

To explore a range of perspectives around the challenge, participants had the opportunity to visit one of six organisations including those who specialised in empowering self-care, data and engaging the public. The participants also had the opportunity to take part in café conversations where they spoke to senior leaders from a wide range of backgrounds outside the health and social care sector about ‘leadership in their world’ in order to expand their network and gain new insights into how different leaders lead beyond their authority and use their network to effect change.

The objectives were to help participants:

• Understand how leaders influence and effect change
• Increase ability to lead beyond their authority
• Gain a sense of ownership of their role as a leader
• Increase their confidence in their ability to lead
• Gain insight into cross-sector collaboration and partnerships
• Be immersed in a real-life leadership challenge

Feedback from participants was positive:

“Great mix of peer-led exercises, expert speakers and visits. Going to The Southmead Development Trust was an amazing experience.”

“Really enjoyable and stimulating couple of days. I hope I can follow through on the many actions I have identified for myself.”

“Very thought provoking – no easy answers but great to hear everyone’s ideas.”

How can the public help to shape the future of #health and #socialcare ? #bhplead Thanks @BristolHealthP for great a opportunity. pic.twitter.com/rnyal3IIeo

— Ellen Devine (@EllenDevine7) 18 January 2017

Download the full evaluation report (PDF). Bristol Health Partners will be providing a further evaluation report on the learning from this training and impact at individual, organisational and system levels.