Foundations in System Leadership: Collaborating for Health and Care

Learn how systems thinking can help you lead effectively

There’s a growing realisation that many global problems are interconnected. For the health and care landscape, there’s a need to reduce the focus on episodic treatment for acute illness and notice the wider determinants of health, delivering more joined-up support for all.

On this five-week course from the NHS Leadership Academy, you’ll explore systems leadership, learn why it’s important in health and care, and develop new capabilities to implement it. You will also recognise where you may already be operating as a systems leader while developing new approaches.

Explore the foundations of a systems approach

Systems thinking is one way of understanding the world of work. Thinking about organisations as living systems means we can observe how to lead effectively based on how systems behave.

You’ll delve into different types of complex systems and look at their characteristics; building a view of how systems work and what aspects you can take away for your own thinking and leadership.

Discover a systems perspective on health and care

On this course, you’ll explore the current health and care context from both a theoretical and practical point of view to reflect on what systems leadership has to offer.

You’ll consider health inequalities and focus on integration and prevention as methods of improving population health and well-being. You’ll also look at other leadership styles to see how they enable and disable systems working.

Develop the skills to make systems leadership a reality

Having clarified what systems leadership is and why it’s important, you’ll analyse the capabilities that are key to leading effectively. Using case studies to illustrate best practice, you’ll build your core skills to help you explore, reflect, relate, and connect through systems leadership.

This course is designed for anyone working in care and health with a desire to improve the way they collaborate across sectoral, organisational, hierarchical, and professional boundaries. Primarily aimed at those working in health and care, it will be ideal for you if:

• You’re already working across systems either formally or informally and you’d like to increase your impact
• You’re intellectually convinced that systems leadership is the way forward and you want to increase your ability to actually do it
• You’ve heard the terms ‘systems leadership’ or ‘systems thinking’ and you want to understand more about what they mean and how you can use them in your context
• You’re not familiar with the concept of systems leadership but you’re passionate about improving health and wellbeing outcomes for your local population and you’re curious about any new approaches that will help you
• You’re increasingly frustrated with how fragmentation, duplication and reactive service

This course is designed for anyone working in care and health with a desire to improve the way they collaborate across sectoral, organisational, hierarchical, and professional boundaries. Primarily aimed at those working in health and care, it will be ideal for you if:

• You’re already working across systems either formally or informally and you’d like to increase your impact
• You’re intellectually convinced that systems leadership is the way forward and you want to increase your ability to actually do it
• You’ve heard the terms ‘systems leadership’ or ‘systems thinking’ and you want to understand more about what they mean and how you can use them in your context
• You’re not familiar with the concept of systems leadership but you’re passionate about improving health and wellbeing outcomes for your local population and you’re curious about any new approaches that will help you
• You’re increasingly frustrated with how fragmentation, duplication and reactive service

• Practice critical reflexivity in relation to their own circumstances and position in multiple systems
• Demonstrate an understanding of what a system is and what 'systems thinking' means
• Develop a systems leadership approach and understand when it can be used
• Investigate how systems leadership could help tackle some of the challenges in delivering health and care
• Develop clarity on how to collaborate across your system to develop a preventative approach to improving the health and care of people in diverse localities
• Explore what is going on in the wider environment that makes systems leadership a useful approach for delivering modern healthcare
• Develop a practical understanding of who you are as a leader and how some of your personal styles and behaviours will help or hinder you in working across systems
• Increase your own capability for leading effectively across systems by deepening your understanding and developing a range of practical skills and techniques