Understanding how health and social care services fit together and how different people, teams or organisations interconnect and interact.
Leaders understand how things are done in different teams and organisations; they recognise the implications of different structures, goals, values and cultures so that they can make links, share risks and collaborate effectively.
- Being rigid in your approach
- Thinking about only my part of the organisation
- Believing only your view is the right one
- Thinking politics is a dirty word
- Failing to engage with other parts of the system
- Focusing solely on the depth of your area at the expense of the broader service
Essential
Recognising how my area of work relates to other parts of the system
Do I understand the formal structure of my area of work and how it fits with other teams?
Do I keep up to date with changes in the system to maintain efficiency?
Do I hand over effectively to others and take responsibility for continuity of service provision?
Proficient
Understanding the culture and politics across my organisation
Do I understand the informal ‘chain of command’ and unwritten rules of how things get done?
Do I know what I need to do and who to go to so that well-judged decisions are made in my organisation?
Do I understand how financial and other pressures influence the way people react in my organisation?
Strong
Adapting to different standards and approaches outside my organisation
Am I connected to stakeholders in a way that helps me to understand their unspoken needs and agendas?
Am I flexible in my approach so I can work effectively with people in organisations that have different standards and approaches from mine?
Do I act flexibly to overcome obstacles?
Exemplary
Working strategically across the system
Do I build strategic relationships to make links across the broader system?
Do I understand how complex connections across the health economy affect the efficiency of the system?
Do I understand which issues affect decisions across the system so that I can anticipate how other stakeholders will react?
