Leadership policy
The preferred and agreed leadership style of Old Hastings House is closest to servant leadership best defined by Simon Sinek. Trusting Teams – The greatness of a servant leader is that they are a person you can reliably trust. Sinek claims that all you must do is ask the members of the team which person will be there when the chips are down.
“The team will always point to the servant leader” – Simon Sinek 3 Mar 2021
Servant leadership is a philosophy (approach), not a checklist. Therefore, the real question is not how to “act” like a servant leader but how to “be” a servant leader.
Those who lead, or who aspire to do so, should start with “why.” Ask yourself, “Why do you have the desire to lead in this particular way?” The key element of servant leadership is to serve others, therefore, it has to come from a genuine motivation to do good, to hold oneself to a higher standard and to provide the conditions needed for others to realise their own path in order to reach their goals. Good leadership links effectiveness with being ethical
At its core servant leadership focuses on the leader at the bottom, rather than the top of the tree. This is a leadership style that aspires to serve by bringing out the best in people and providing the conditions by which they can reach their full potential.
Key behaviours of servant-leaders:
- Commit to create a great experience and culture for others to flourish
- Deeply cares about their team
- Watch over but don’t dominate or overly control
- Keep in touch by Inquiring, understanding and connecting with their teams
- Anticipate need and then meet needs without being asked
- Clearly express expectations and in a way which is inspiring
- Puts the mission and the needs of other first
- Express gratitude for the opportunity to serve and for the contribution of others
Read on for further detail including the procedure to becoming a leader
Key qualities in a Good servant Leader
- Serves their team and not themselves
- Inspires their team to do the right thing rather than manipulate or threaten
- Trustworthy and straightforward
- Leads by example – by leading from the front
- Understands the needs of residents especially those with high needs
- Approachable
- Leads the circle of safety based on everyone having each other’s backs
- Thinks long-term – looking beyond the shift
- Puts the cause first by being on mission (see mission statement)
- Sparks the team to be the best version of themselves
- Sets a positive open culture where improvement ideas are encouraged
- Reliable, consistent and energetic
- Roles models the person – centered approach person before the task and relaxed routines
- Taken seriously due to their practice and thoroughness
- Deals directly and courageously with others in a timely way
- Resilience and the ability to cope well under pressure
- Dignity: Stamps out all forms of discrimination such as labelling of residents
- Able to form positive and productive relationships with everyone
- Solution focused and creative
- Set clear expectations for followers
- Constantly striving to improve by reflection and staying humble
Leadership Skill at Old Hastings House aims to contain the following:
- An ability to take people to a higher place by leading from the front
- Being self-aware recognising how behaviour impacts on others
- Conflict resolution skills based on positive outcomes
- An ability to form good working relationships with everyone
- An ability to make the right situational judgements
- Knows the team through proven observational skill
- Effectively supports others to improve their skills
- Assertive when others do not meet expectations (credibility)
- Good communication skills shown in setting clear expectations
- Approachable: Willingness to accept criticism and listen to constructive ideas
- Good organisational skills shown in effective planning and preparation
- Ability to be flexible to changing need by not taking a rigid approach
- Provides others with achievable and varied challenges
The process and Procedure to becoming leader
Old Hastings House is committed to giving everyone the opportunity to develop leadership skills. All established staff can show leadership behaviors when this is lacking. For others, they may wish to become formal leader. This would normally arise as part of an annual appraisal where there is a focus on developing a Personal Development Plan PDP). This would set out, with the support of a supervisor, the route into a leadership role along with the necessary support. This might include the opportunity to run a specific project or shadow shift opportunities to understand the finer details and the realities of leading a team.
It’s the philosophy of the home to constantly look out for opportunities to grow our own leaders as part of succession planning, equality of opportunity and job satisfaction.
Those who aspire to becoming formal leaders will need to show at least the following:
- Role model the values of the organisation – gets on with it
- A proven ability to work well with others including formal leaders
- Positive feedback from residents and colleagues
- Reliability shown in a good absence record
- Trusted by others for their integrity, values and work ethic
- Willingness to engage with difficult situations and decisions
- Good self-awareness
- Humble but self-confident and not focused on being liked or acknowledged
- Commitment to learning shown in their training record and changes to practice
- Inclusive: anti-gossip and anti-cliques and supportive of Whole Team Working
- Is likely to have followers
- At least working towards an NVQ 3
- Is on mission (see Mission Statement)
Relationship between leaders and followers:
- Collaborative and engaging-involving followers in decisions but takes the lead where there is disagreement working alongside followers to achieve goals
- Open and approachable, but not over-familiar
- Treats everyone fairly and with respect
- Fairly Investigates the reason for failure rather than diving in
- Clear performance feedback and goal setting
- Openness to any follower becoming a leader
- Sparks and guides the group to the right place
- Encourages staff to develop skills and confidence
- The Leader accepts different personalities by avoiding being judgmental, displaying favoritism, or losing objectivity
- There is mutual two-way respect
Summary
The policy took into account recent 1:1 interviews conducted by the manager with staff at all levels from May 2022, which explored improvement ideas including preferred leadership styles. This updated policy also took into account the views expressed by the representative focus group in August 2018. This followed a staff survey where Leadership was identified as a skill which can be learnt shown in the ability to form effective and safe relationships. It was agreed that leaders were not born but made that there are no leaders without followers; that follower can become leaders; and leaders are judged by their actions. In other words, leadership is a behaviour which regardless of whether someone is in a formal leadership role. We call this leading in the moment.
The effectiveness of leading is based on the relationship between followers and leaders. For this reason, we put the ship into leadership by sharing (distributing) leadership throughout the whole team where we seek to grow our own leaders by having the right nurturing culture. We aim to have a succession plan should the manager and, or senior staff leave the service based on developing aspiring leaders. Leadership is from the front and not the back. So, whilst leaders should collaborate and involve others, they are expected to give a clear lead by making decisions.
The leadership direction of the service was validated by Skills for Care (official partners of CQC ) when Old Hastings House won the national award for its approach to leadership and management 2018. This was based on: “the proven ability of the service to deliver personal centred care: the views of those working and using the service; and the distributed (Shared) level of leadership where everyone has the chance to learn the skills, from housekeeper to care team leader”
This policy is centred on the principle that Good leadership (or being well-led) is about being both Effective and Ethical – two sides of the same coin. There is no value in being a good person if you cannot achieve anything or being effective but untrustworthy. Good Leadership should always aim to lead people to a higher place.
Next review date – June 2024