Evaluating leadership development in a changing world?:Alternative models and approaches for healthcare organisations

Internationally, healthcare is undergoing a major reconfiguration in a post-pandemic world. To make sense of this change and deliver an integrated provision of care, which improve both patient outcomes and satisfaction for key stakeholders, healthcare leaders must develop an insight into the context in which healthcare is delivered, and leadership is enacted. Formal leadership development programmes (LDPs) are widely used for developing leaders and leadership in healthcare organizations. However, there is a paucity of rigorous evaluations of LDPs. Existing evaluations often focus on individual-level outcomes, with limited attention to long-term outcomes that might emerge across team and organizational levels. Specifically, evaluation models that have been closely associated with or rely heavily on qualitative methods are seldom used in LDP evaluations, despite their relevance for capturing unanticipated outcomes, investigating learning impact over time, and studying collective outcomes at multiple levels. The purpose of this paper is to review the potential of qualitative models and approaches in healthcare leadership development evaluation. This scoping review identifies seventeen evaluation models and approaches. Findings indicate that the incorporation of qualitative and participatory elements in evaluation designs could offer a richer demonstration and context-specific explanations of programme impact in healthcare contexts

Commissioning personalised care in the English adult social care sector: using action research as a framework to support leadership development

This paper presents the perspectives of English adult social care sector partners on the qualifications and standards required for leaders as they prepare to meet the demands of commissioning and commissioned personalised care across service user groups. Using an action research cycle guided by Coghlan and Brannicks (2010, p 4) organisational centred model (McCray and Palmer, 2009) it benefits from the previous experience, practice learning and reflection in action of the partners and researchers who were involved in an earlier phase of the research cycle. Findings presented are derived from focus group discussions with strategic and organisational leaders from the English adult social care sectors including those for older people, people with complex disability, learning disability, acquired brain injury and mental health. Leadership development needs required for the commissioning of personalised care in a changing context of health and social care delivery are identified. The paper also shows how action research can make a contribution to knowledge and practice by continuous engagement between researchers and participants through a period of transformation

Bourdieu’s habitus and field: implications on the practice and theory of critical action learning

This paper considers the logic of practice of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in relation to critical action learning: in particular habitus which is co-created with field and the interplay amongst the two in the form of misrecognition and risk. We draw on interviews with participants who have experienced action learning as part of an NHS leadership programme. We argue that Bourdieu provides helpful ways of understanding and explaining the complex processes of social interactions which are centre stage in action learning – especially the ‘social friction’ through which action learners gain new insights and new prompts to action in their workplace from learning set members. These insights can support action learning practitioners keen to explore their own practice

Building sustainable yet unsettling inter-disciplinary research practices:Paying attention to ourselves as researchers

Descriptions of methodology and the content of research that treats them as separate endeavours can hide the work done in how researchers come to make sense of and understand what they are doing together. Dan Schendel, the joint founder of Strategic Management Review, expressed his concern thus: ‘The separation of content and method is artificial, and that processes must be studied alongside or coincidentally with content (Schendel, 1992).’ This can be uncomfortable yet building more sustainable research requires us to do just that, to look at our own practice, to be aware that we are both the subjects and objects of our own work (Empson, 2012) and how we shift our approaches in the face of experience and carry on. These are insights that can both shine a light on our methods as well as the content of our research

Action learning: ripples within and beyond the set

Purpose: To explore the impact of action learning on an individual and an organisation, particularly the process by which each affected the other. The organisation is a UK National Health Service (NHS) Trust that includes two hospitals. Design/methodology/approach: This is a single person case study involving a clinician, but we also hear the voice of an author. It involves the experience of the individual as they experience action learning as part of a leadership development programme leading to a Post Graduate Certificate. We explain our caution of the case study approach and in doing so offer our thoughts in how this paper could be read and impact on practice. Findings: We show a process whereby an action learning set participant moves from being confident about their project to one of uncertainty as the impact of the project ripples throughout the organisation. Through this process of unsettlement, the individual’s unnoticed assumptions are explored in ways that enable practical action to be taken. In doing so the individual’s leadership and identity developed. Research limitations/implications: Practical implications: Social implications: Originality/value: This single case study contributes to the debate on critical action learning (CAL) and the use of action learning in the NHS