How leadership can affect staff wellbeing

The RCSLT is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year and during that time wellbeing has played an important part in supporting and caring for our workforce. Head of RCSLT Scotland, Glenn Carter, articulates the role of leaders in creating a shared wellbeing culture.

The best leadership decisions I have made have pretty much always involved a process of doing something with staff rather than imposing it on them.   

Leadership at all levels is hugely important and the best teams harness this. 

But the reality is that within hierarchical structures, those with leadership positions have power and with that power comes the ability to do good and the ability to cause harm.   

The central importance of wellbeing was underlined by the Carnegie trust: “All organisations are made up of people, and an organisation’s performance is therefore hugely affected by how happy, engaged, purposeful and safe its people feel.” (Thurman B, 2020). 

SLTs face a huge increase in pressure due to workload and other factors. This pressure can cause leaders to slip into a command-and-control leadership style where decisions are made quickly and without collaboration. This of course is required sometimes but if it becomes the norm then it can be very damaging to team welfare, engagement and efficacy.  

In his book, ‘Good to great’ (2021), Jim Collins highlighted that there are two factors that set apart the good from the great leaders. The great leaders demonstrate a paradoxical blend of humility and professional will. That is, leaders who understand the power of collective wisdom and shared decision making but also demonstrate unwavering resolve and ambition not for themselves but for the team and the people they serve.  

I think staff wellbeing has four key pillars.  

1. Compassionate leadership: “involves a focus on relationships through careful listening to, understanding, empathising with and supporting other people, enabling those we lead to feel valued, respected and cared for, so they can reach their potential and do their best work” (West M, 2021). 
2. Culture development: intentionally engaging with culture development and creating it with staff using evidence-based tools like the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s ‘Framework for Improving Joy in Work’ (Perlo J et al, 2017).
3. Sustainable workload: making brave decisions about what we should and shouldn’t be doing and working further upstream to prevent harm and advocating for more resource.
4. Sustainable wellbeing approaches: based on what a particular team needs at the time. 

The compassionate and collaborative leaders are the brave ones. They are the ones who truly collaborate with others to navigate the complexity. But they also have the determination to do the right thing and to keep going when things get tough. The golden thread that connects the four pillars is the genuine desire to question your own beliefs, to be willing to understand and to do stuff together. Real power is shared.