KCBN Conference 2013 Workshop - Leadership styles and supporting staff

1. KCBN Conference 2013Workshop - Leadership styles and supporting staff Facilitators - Roy Deveau, Tizard centre, University of Kent Emily Fairless, Support Worker

2. Staff supporting people who challenge What we know • The research - Staff report anxiety, suffering stress, especially when they don’t know how to react to CB, lack of training, high sickness and turnover levels. • Support is mainly provided by immediate colleagues AND especially the immediate line manager

3. Research also shows • Staff rapport (relationships) emotional states and responses to people exhibiting CB are setting events for CB. i.e. How staff are feeling, what they believe and how they behave can make behaviour problems, better or worse. (I guess, we all knew that anyway).

4. How should managers support staff managing CB • Working with colleagues in good teams is supportive • The immediate manager is a prime source of support. BUT. What is the best form of support for the immediate manager to offer? • Observe a role play and discuss, in groups, how you would manage this staff situation to get the best for the staff team and the people they support.

5. Staff support and leadership styles see “Leadership Starts with Me” (www.nsasocialcare.co.uk) • Management is a set of well-known processes, like planning, budgeting, structuring jobs, staffing jobs, measuring performance and problem-solving. • So, management is crucial — but it’s not leadership. • Leadership is entirely different. It is associated with taking an organisation into the future, finding opportunities …..Leadership is about vision, about commitment and empowerment and, most of all, about producing useful change. Leadership is not about attributes, it’s about behaviour. OUR BEHAVIOUR

6. National Skills Academy - Social care leadership • The values, principles and qualities of good leaders. • Good leadership qualities, includes: Self awareness, self management (mindfulness is prominent today) acting with integrity and continuous personal development. • Any worker can find themselves in leadership scenarios where their knowledge, skills or experience make them a leader.

7. My research with service managers focused upon Practice Leadership Staff experience and PL • PL is associated with less staff stress, greater positive work experiences and being managed to develop their work performance.

8. Staff survey, some results(Deveau & McGill, in press) PL was more strongly associated with Developmental than Supportive leadership (Developmental leadership rho .376 p<0.001 Supportive leadership rho .197 p<0.05) PL was associated with lower staff emotional exhaustion (Maslach Burnout Inventory, Emotional Exhaustion Rho -.174 p<0.05) PL was associated with greater teamwork (rho -0.286 p<0.01)

9. Interview study with service managers(Deveau & McGill, in review)Manager’s developing and shaping staff performance • If you’ve got someone who is a really, really good carer who is trying to work with someone with challenging behaviours and they come unstuck shift after shift, get the most stressful shift…..you’re in danger of losing that person because they feel frustrated, they get upset, worn out” (10,8) • “The way to sort that, was for that person to work three out of five shifts on the same allocation…..for a period of six weeks. So although that’s quite tough, at the end of it, you’ve actually developed the best communication and relationship with that person…. they were always the people that ended up least stressed with that particular service user…..but you’ve got to sell that to the staff member” (10,8).

10. Employers positive influence on managers • Some managers described their senior managers as having positive personal influence upon them, through recognising abilities and trying to develop these: • “ N was the manager I needed.. She saw the potential in me before I did”

11. Theme – Managers personalities and experiences • Managers own experiences of ‘life’ and work mentors/role models both good and bad shaped their actions and values: • “I think I had a really good mentor when I came into the profession… I started off as a support worker. And I think I’ve always been quite fortunate that I’ve always had good mentors.. I think that’s had quite an impact”

12. conclusions • Frontline managers who use a practice leadership style, get the best from and for their staff and service users. • The personal behaviours (e.g. wanting to observe personally, experiences of mentors more important than ‘training’) and values of practice leaders were crucial. • Leaders: constant focus upon developing skills, knowledge and abilities of all the people in a setting. A developmental focus rather than upon staff’s personal feelings appears to be more useful in supporting staff to manage stressful situations. • The Driving Up Quality Code (post Winterbourne View , support provider’s initiative) and supported by CQC includes a strong emphasis upon practice leadership.

13. Contact • THANKS FOR TAKING PART • if you would like to discuss PL or developing staff support in stressful situations or ask for a copy of the slides please feel free to contact me: R.Deveau@kent.ac.uk