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Leadership in today's NHS means encouraging and developing the people working in front-line positions to see themselves as leaders. This is the message Christina Pond of the NHS Leadership Centre will put forward at the Public Sector Leadership conference on 21 April in London.
"We're trying to encourage this idea of leadership at all levels," said Pond, director of team and network leadership. "So, yes, you do need very senior strategic leaders, but you need to develop a distributed leadership network as well.
"We often have junior-level people at the front line, having to make decisions that involve a number of different agencies."
This partnership approach -exemplified in the care of older people, where a patient's 'journey of care' can cross the paths of numerous agencies -has become a feature of working life in the NHS, and by extension, the entire public sector, said Pond.
The "distributed leadership" model reflects the demands of partnership working, and the NHS Leadership Centre uses a range of methods - including workshops, action learning sets and mentoring - to develop leaders down the line.
For more details on the conference, which is organised by the Public Service Partnership, ring 0161-975 6293
