Education
Future Leaders Programme – Why leadership matters Hiro Tanaka and Lisa Hadfield-Law “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch
Why leadership matters
Hiro Tanaka is a Consultant Foot and Ankle Surgeon at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. He is a council member of the BOA and Editor for the JTO. He led the development of the Future Leaders Programme as Chair of the BOA Education Committee and currently runs the programme in partnership with Lisa Hadfield-Law.
Lisa Hadfield-Law has spent 20 years in clinical practice and surgical education. She has managed an orthopaedic/trauma service of a teaching hospital and has insight into the circumstances and challenges facing surgical teams. She is Education Advisor to the British Orthopaedic Association & AOUKI, and contributes to the T&O SAC, FST Advisory Board and ISCP Management group. 40 | JTO | Volume 09 | Issue 03 | September 2021 | boa.ac.uk
Over the last decade, the role of clinicians in the NHS as leaders of healthcare has been viewed as critically important in the delivery of patient safety and improving outcomes. The shift away from increasing managerialism to engaging clinicians was encapsulated in a wave of policies published by the Department of Health in 2009: High Quality Care for All. Lord Ara Darzi had been appointed as health minister in 2007 and his vision was to put quality at the heart of the NHS. The need for clinicians as leaders has become even more pressing in the face of a global economic downturn and pandemic crisis because improving care within an environment of shrinking resources becomes a major challenge. The transition from an individual clinician to a healthcare leader is a significant step, one which requires a change in selfimage, values, behaviours, knowledge and skills. People understand the term leadership in different ways. Perhaps the most stereotypical view is that of the individual, powerful, charismatic leader who authoritatively manages a team or organisation. Whilst many surgeons are appointed to management positions, this view of clinical leadership is somewhat
outdated, and the modern conceptualisation puts more emphasis on the process of leadership as opposed to the individual. In a complex system such as healthcare, leadership is distributed and the responsibility of the clinician is to contribute to this process by nurturing and empowering the leadership capacity of others. This principle lies at the heart of the BOA Future Leaders Programme (FLP) and this article sets out its key learning outcomes. These outcomes are reflected in the 2021 T&O curriculum and the Medical Leadership Competency Framework [Figure 1) from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. >>
Figure 1 – Medical Leadership Competency Framework.
