Reflecting on my leadership journey

Being nominated was incredibly exciting however realisation strikes, the fear sets in, the excitement fades. I then approached the task in hand, like I do with anything, I made lists, I set personal goals and just got started. I reached out to previous Casson lecturers who were generous with their time and encouragement. I read previous Casson articles, held a twitter chat at OTalk, spoke endlessly to my peers, colleagues and friends and then my ideas on what to present developed and the excitement returned. I took the opportunity & centre stage to reflect, research, debate and discuss a theme that was important to me then and I still believe is today, leadership. I approached the lecture as a personal narrative, bringing transformation leadership to life as I explored what it meant to me personally, practically and professionally.

My themes: Then and Now

I started the lecture with my personal leadership journey as a narrative, sharing my occupational therapy career from student to national leader, the inspirational people I have worked with and remembering my many other roles as a mum, wife, sister, auntie (& now a great auntie) and daughter. It felt a risk, to start the lecture this way but I wanted to “make leadership accessible to everyone here, through sharing my journey”. In 2021, I was then invited to share the story of my career in 5 photographs, to inspire our future occupational therapists and you can read the blog here https://tinyurl.com/w9bkukpa

The lecture then focused on what I called habits and routines of transformational leadership. I suggested to be a leader you had to reflect on what type of leader you want to be and shared the work by Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban Metcalfe (2008) to demonstrate this key message.  They had developed a model characterised by a strong sense of inclusiveness, where leadership is ‘distributed’ throughout all levels of an organisation, enabling others to display leadership themselves and working with others towards achieving a shared vision. I still think these are relevant leadership qualities today. For me, my leadership learning continues, and I still go to back to the work of Covey (2004) but am also reviewing newer work by Sharpe (2020) and West (2021).

Reflection for you: What model of leadership would you invite us to review?

I advocated that to engage people in our work, you need a vision: an image of the future. If you have no vision, you have no followers.  Your vision has to reflect practice but be translated from policy and local context, it needs to set a direction, purpose, inspire and be achievable. I suggested our service users stories are as powerful as hard data and I shared a 5-minute video where we listened to the voice of people with lived experience. I still believe the need for a vision is as important then as it is now and since 2013, I have developed a new vision for change to transform how we work with people with dementia and their families. (Alzheimer Scotland 2017, 2020). All evidence sources were reviewed and critiqued and the voice of people with dementia and their families were integral to the vision for change.

Reflection for you: How do you engage people with lived experience to inform your vision for occupational therapy now and in the future?  

To do this takes time and you have to be prepared to be a ‘leader among leaders’.  The community of influence I wrote about in 2013, still meets to this day and I have since established a new community of influence and you can view their amazing work at www.alzscot.org/ahpdementia and https://tinyurl.com/dn6yfha

Reflection for you: When reflecting on your communities of influence, how could you visually represent your networks of influence, showing where you have influence and where you need to have more influence.

I promoted the idea that you need to share your vision showcasing what I called “traditional” methods and “new ways of getting the message out to a wider public” inviting us all to be a digital leader where I debated the merits of twitter and hosting an OTalk! Eight years on, this makes me smile. As I am writing this blog, we are in the midst of #AHPsActive and getting ready for #AHPsDay on the 14^th October. It looks like we are all becoming “digital leaders”, embracing twitter, blogs, Instagram, animation, podcasts, Near Me, Microsoft Teams ensuring occupational therapists are connecting now on a global scale.

Reflection for you: What digital platform do you use routinely to share your vision and why?  

Eight years on, however I would add, to be a transformational leader you have to welcome new ideas and remember to look after yourself.  This has been an extra ordinary challenging 18 months and “we need more than ever to look after ourselves to ensure that we can keep helping the people we support” (RCOT 2021)

Reflections for you: Share your amazing work on twitter, tag me at @elaineahpmh & use the hash tag #ValueofOT and let’s celebrate and support each other digitally too.