Systems leadership takes basic ideas about leadership behaviours, and uses them to show how to lead when you need to work across boundaries.\u00a0When you need to go beyond your own organisation, or service, or area of expertise, and interact with others \u2013\u00a0often with very different priorities and points of view \u2013 systems leadership comes into its own.<\/p>\n
Over the past fifty years,\u00a0systems thinking\u00a0has\u00a0been used in physics<\/a>, economics<\/a>, social movements<\/a>, and in evolutionary biology<\/a>, as well as in leadership and management development.\u00a0 From the 1980s onwards, it has been associated with ideas around adaptive leadership, particularly in the writings of Ronald Heifetz<\/a> and Keith Grint<\/a>. A comprehensive literature review<\/a>\u00a0citing many of the key thinkers in the field was published by the Virtual Staff College in 2013.<\/p>\n Systems leadership is particularly helpful when:<\/p>\n These kinds of complex problems have been defined as \u2018wicked\u2019 issues<\/a>, they have\u00a0multiple causes and no single solution, and there is no\u00a0real certainty or direction about what needs to be done. To\u00a0solve these wicked issues, you\u00a0can\u2019t simply do what you\u2019ve done before. You also need to recognise\u00a0there will be knock-on effects whatever you do and that trade-offs will be necessary. People working in public services including\u00a0health and social care, local authorities, housing associations, social workers, the voluntary sector, community groups, clinical commissioning groups and health and wellbeing boards are all\u00a0coming up\u00a0against\u00a0wicked issues more and more.\u00a0Fewer resources, increasing demand, greater complexity\u00a0and higher expectations\u00a0make for a \u2018perfect storm\u2019 of wicked issues.<\/p>\n Systems leadership is distributed leadership; it works on the basis that you\u2019re not a leader simply because of your job title or the letters after your name. Systems leadership is based on having a shared ambition, with the patient, or service user, in the centre. It means getting as many people involved around the table as possible. Systems leaders recognise that different people will be in the best position to provide leadership in different circumstances. So it goes beyond partnership or collaboration, because it\u2019s not just about retaining your own power and authority while working with others \u2013 it\u2019s about handing the leadership to others if that\u2019s what\u2019s needed. Systems leadership behaviours include:<\/p>\n There is a national systems leadership initiative in England, supported by the NHS, local government, public health, adult social care and children\u2019s services.<\/p>\n The programme includes national and international research<\/a> on \u2018what works\u2019 in systems leadership;\u00a0 joint leadership development programmes, such as \u2018Leadership for Change<\/a>\u2018, <\/em>where teams from different sectors learn about applying systems leadership to a wicked issue in their place; systems leadership development for public health professionals in their new roles, through the \u2018Skills for Systems Leadership\u2019 programme; and on-the-ground support for places, so that they can use systems leadership to integrate services and improve the health and wellbeing of the people who live there.<\/p>\n This place-based support is currently being provided to over forty places around the country through the \u2018Systems Leadership \u2013 Local Vision<\/a>\u2018 initiative, and the \u2018Integrated Care and Support Pioneers<\/a>\u2018 programme.<\/p>\n Alongside health and social care integration, the local programmes have involved issues such as reducing alcohol abuse, tackling social isolation and loneliness, improving dementia awareness and increasing levels of physical activity.<\/p>\n There is evidence that using systems leadership approaches has supported real change and progress.\u00a0 Find out more about individual projects in our Project directory. Or read our report \u2013 \u00a0The Revolution will be Improvised<\/a> \u2013 summarising\u00a0the learning from the first wave of 25 Systems Leadership \u2013 Local Vision\u00a0projects.\u00a0Further evidence for the use of systems leadership achieving real results is also available in The Revolution will be Improvised Part II<\/a>, released in late 2015. This publications draws on the findings from nearly forty\u00a0Local\u00a0Vision places to show what happened when systems leadership practices were used.<\/p>\n Systems leadership is also highlighted in the Integrated Care and Support\u00a0Pioneer Programme’s\u00a0Year 1 Report<\/a>\u00a0and Year 2 report<\/a>.\u00a0The case studies from the Islington and Worcestershire pioneers, in particular, demonstrate the value of systems leadership approaches.<\/p>\n A good first step is to think about the kinds of factors that enable systems leadership to flourish, and how far these can be found where you are.\u00a0 There\u2019s a useful guide in the Virtual Staff College\u2019s systems leadership\u00a0Synthesis paper<\/a>. There are also useful lessons \u2013 do\u2019s and don\u2019t\u2019s \u2013 in The Revolution will be Improvised<\/a> and The Revolution will be Improvised Part II<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you would like to discuss how you can encourage systems leadership in your locality,\u00a0contact us<\/a> via this website or\u00a0email\u00a0debbie.sorkin@leadershipcentre.org.uk<\/a> or\u00a0john.jarvis@leadershipcentre.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is systems leadership? Systems leadership takes basic ideas about leadership behaviours, and uses them to show how to lead when you need to work across boundaries.\u00a0When you need to go beyond your own organisation, or service, or area of expertise, and interact with others \u2013\u00a0often with very different priorities and points of view \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-leadership.php","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipcentre.org.uk\/systemsleadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipcentre.org.uk\/systemsleadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipcentre.org.uk\/systemsleadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipcentre.org.uk\/systemsleadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipcentre.org.uk\/systemsleadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipcentre.org.uk\/systemsleadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipcentre.org.uk\/systemsleadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/754\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipcentre.org.uk\/systemsleadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}When is\u00a0systems leadership\u00a0relevant?<\/h3>\n
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What are the basic principles?<\/h3>\n
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What\u00a0does it\u00a0mean in practice?<\/h3>\n
How can I begin to use\u00a0systems leadership\u00a0in my area?<\/h3>\n