Occupational Therapy News OTnews February 2020 | Page 45

LEADERSHIP FEATURE
Leadership in strategic development
Internally, a leader will coach staff to fuel growth of the service with
a long-term strategic plan.
I developed a caseload-based approach to examine the
capacity of the service and used it to calculate the costing of the
service activities to prepare for the World Class Commissioning in
the NHS (Chu 2012).
Staff training and involvement are essential to examine the
demand and capacity of the service so that all members are
involved in making changes in the model of service delivery.
It is important to note that whole system change often takes
five years or more to see results. Effective leaders will show
strength by holding their nerve and seeing things through to
renewed success.
The issue of sustainability will need to be considered in any
long-term strategic plan in service development.
Recently, a guide has been published on investing in chief allied
health professionals (AHPs) at trust board level (NHS Improvement
nationally and internationally. I have been involved in presenting
keynote speeches and seminars at professional conferences, and
also published many clinical and research papers in professional
journals.
Manager or leader?
In summary, I have shared my reflection on developing multi-
dimensional leadership with a focus on the ‘hard’ technical
knowledge in different dimensions of practice.
Each leadership role described has its own requirement in terms
of knowledge and skills. However, all roles are complimentary
to each other and build on each other in the path of personal
development.
I have asked myself this question for many years: Am I a manager
or am I a leader?
Throughout my professional journey, I learned, applied, reflected
and adapted my behaviour in leading and managing people in order
to enhance my practice. It was not an easy journey, but I was able to
2019). It highlights the benefits of the chief AHP role and the
transformative contribution of the AHP workforce to quality,
productivity and system sustainability.
It is important to ensure that such a role is established at
strategic level to reflect the leadership philosophy and culture of a
NHS organisation. overcome different obstacles and meet many challenges.
So my answer to the question is that I was a manager, but now
I am a leader. It is not so much about the title of your job, but more
about how you do your job. I hope this has provided some pointers
for therapists who want to develop into a leadership role.
Leadership in training and publication Chu, S (2012) Are you ready for World-Class Commissioning in the NHS?
Internally, the leader of a service should create a culture of learning
and provide opportunities to all staff to share information with
each other through presentations on continuing professional
development days, to disseminate good practice at conferences,
and to publish clinical or research articles in professional journals.
Externally, leaders should seek out best practice and help
disseminate this through training events and publications for the
benefit of local and national communities, and not just for single
services or organisations.
Working along this line of leadership thinking, I have developed
and presented at many management and clinical workshops both
References
Occupational Therapy News, January 2012, pages 32-34
Chu, S (2014) A model of good practice. Occupational Therapy News,
March 2014, pages 26-27
NHS Improvement (2019) Investing in chief allied health professionals:
insights from trust executives – a guide to reviewing AHP leadership for
trust boards and clinicians. NHS Improvement publication code: SL
21/19.
Dr Sidney Chu, Fellow, Royal College of Occupational Therapists,
Honorary Fellow, Brunel University London, and Honorary Member,
Sensory Integration Network
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