Leadership - Why Not?

I made an Infographic!

I’ve been facilitating Why Not workshops for about 18 months now, so it seemed like a good time to evaluate participants’ experiences and learning so far. I made an infographic for the first time in my life, and it describes findings from midwifery workshops. I’ve worked with other healthcare professionals too, but thought I’d focus my first evaluation on midwives.

As you’ll know from previous posts and my website content, I use Insights to support workshop learning. I’m excited to share this feedback from participants, as it makes me feel optimistic about the work I’m doing. The other day, I was on a call to some midwives who attended one of my workshops about a year ago, and they were telling me how much they continue to use the learning from their workshop. One of them told me she’s now thinking about her communication style when engaging with colleagues, because she’s acutely aware that information giving and receiving is filtered through our behavioural preferences. It’s great to hear the workshops are having the longer lasting impact I was hoping for.

So here we are (please insert a tiny drumroll at this point): my very first infographic!

Coming soon, a copy of my ICM 2023 poster, which describes the findings from workshops in relation to Insights colour energies!

Together again after all this time

According to the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), this year’s theme for the International Day of the Midwife last week (Together Again: from evidence to reality) is ‘a nod to the upcoming 33rd ICM Triennial Congress, where our global midwifery community will come together for the first time in more than 5 years’.

Reading that, and creating my annual IDM piece of embroidery (the illustration for this post is full of sparkly beads and was created to represent the global nature of the midwifery community), I took a moment to reflect on what I’ve been doing since the last in-person ICM congress, when we met in Toronto in 2017.

Back then (and it really does feel like a lifetime ago) I was a Research Fellow in Maternity Care at the University of Nottingham. In Toronto, I presented on aspects of my doctoral research into midwifery leadership and identity, and brought a poster along as well. One of my doctoral supervisors had suggested my research into midwifery leadership and identity would create a career’s worth of work, and thinking about that now I don’t believe he was far from the truth.

Since leaving the University of Nottingham in June 2018, I’ve continued to explore the subjects of leadership and identity, both within and beyond midwifery. First, I moved into the business school at Northumbria University, where I took up a lectureship in leadership and management. I worked with undergraduate and postgraduate students from healthcare, other public sector and private sector organisations, developing my understanding of how identity narratives are created in a range of professions and contexts. While at Northumbria I also completed my PG Certificate in Coaching, and I became an Insights Discovery practitioner. I found that Insights could create a valuable framework through which individuals, teams and organisations might develop awareness of and solutions to such challenges as leadership, communication and collaborative working, all based within a positive psychology approach – celebrating strengths and at the same time addressing limitations.

In 2019, I took up the role of Professional Advisor for Leadership at the Royal College of Midwives, and brought my background in clinical midwifery, my research-based understanding of leadership, and my Insights-based understanding of identity narratives with me. Having been briefly away from the midwifery profession, I was now back in its midst, and I worked to develop workshops and programmes based on my hybrid learning and understanding.

On leaving the RCM in 2021, I established my own business – here at Why Not, I support midwives in their personal, team and leadership development. I love working with the profession so much! In the face of reports critical of midwifery and multidisciplinary leadership, my focus is always on what midwives do bring to the table, and exploring their understanding of leadership from a personal perspective – taking ownership of (and challenging) the idea that midwifery is leadership.

What also brings me joy is the range of opportunities I’ve been given to work with other professions. Within Why Not, I’ve recently expanded my workshops to include nurses and other healthcare professionals, and it’s been joyous to be able to see how Insights can impact beyond my home profession. Alongside Why Not, I’m an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, working on the NHS Leadership Academy’s Anderson Programme. I work with some inspiring and dedicated NHS leaders, both clinical and non-clinical, exploring how the core tenets of contemporary leadership theory (compassion, authenticity, collaboration, engagement) play out in their working lives. Beyond the NHS, I also hold an Associate Lectureship at Northumbria University, and there I work with student police officers. Again, I feel an immense sense of privilege to be supporting their development, exploring their understanding of self and others, leadership and teamworking.

What a few years I’ve had. Never having had any kind of career plan, I do feel that following opportunities and running headlong down unexpected paths has brought plenty of adventures. And so to Bali for ICM 2023, where you’ll find me presenting a poster on the subject of midwifery leadership, the theme I always come back to. I’ll be highlighting how the professional identity of midwives is inextricably linked to leadership, using learning from my Insights workshops to explore the assertion that midwifery is leadership. I’m excited to have the opportunity to be together again, after all this time: back in the room with so many inspirational midwives from around the world. Wherever I go, and whatever I do, I always come back to midwifery, and I’m grateful for it.

Bringing your Authentic Self to Work: fairy lights and origami

Bringing your authentic self to work, and particularly in the context of leadership and management, has been a hot topic in recent years. It sounds simple, and actually pretty logical, if you think about authenticity in terms of your values and behaviours:

‘Being your true authentic self means what you say in life aligns with your actions… It is who you are at your deepest core. It is about being true to yourself through your thoughts, words and actions, and having these three areas match each other’. Read more about authenticity here.

But what does it really mean for us to be our authentic self in the workplace, and what are some of the challenges? This week, I’m exploring the topic of authenticity in relation to my own office space.

As you can see from the image adorning this post, I don’t have what you might call a muted office backdrop. This is my most recent office space (at home, of course) but wherever I’ve had a desk I’ve taken the same approach. My colleagues at the University of Nottingham will remember my year-round tinsel and the seasonal crochet displays, while at Northumbria University I had a noticeboard full of Instax photos and running medals. While working at the Royal College of Midwives, I somehow managed to persuade the facilities manager to put up a shiny new noticeboard behind my desk, and I imagine he assumed it would be for important notices and spreadsheets. Well, it definitely did have some spreadsheets, but of course there were many other things on it as well. Although no fairy lights.

The backdrop I’m working with at the moment might look chaotic, but it’s actually been quite carefully thought out. The fairy lights are pretty normal for my house (to the point where my mum said it looks like we live in a grotto!), but the other elements are worthy of a closer look.

First, the origami cranes. I had a pretty tricky beginning to 2021, and during the first few months of the year I needed to work quite hard at distracting myself from some challenging events. I’ve always used origami as a means of disconnecting from problems, or as a support for thinking time (try it – it’s ace!) and someone told me that if I make 1000 cranes I can have a wish. I mean, I could just go and throw a coin into a well, but this method of getting a free wish will be such a conversation starter!

Next, the embroidery. For one thing, I love to sew (and I was sewing when it most definitely was not a cool thing to do), and I was exploring how sewing might be a way of expressing myself. As for the designs, these reflect all things midwifery: the giraffe relates to the subject of my doctoral research, while the other two pieces reflect the most recent themes for International Day of the Midwife.

And finally, there are several little art pieces and postcards, all of which have been gifted to me by significant people or chosen as a memory of important places in my life.

So how does it feel to bring my authentic self to work every day? At first, I found myself worrying that the backdrop to my office was just too colourful – should I be more corporate? Do I look like a crazy lady? But then I thought, should this even matter? And in fact, it’s proved a really positive ice breaker and conversation starter in lots of contexts. I’ve been told by midwives in my leadership workshops that they feel relaxed because they can see immediately who they’re working with. And in meetings, I’m very (very!) often greeted with expressions of delight at the fairy lights – apparently, they’re guaranteed to brighten up the dullest morning.

I’m lucky, in the sense that it’s easy for me to show myself at work: that backdrop is visible every day, and let’s not forget that I also have a long history of (perhaps) over-sharing. For others, it may be more of a challenge, as they prefer to keep some things back. For some people, there’s comfort to be found in separating work from home entirely. It really doesn’t matter which approach works best for you – it’s just important that you’re comfortable with what you choose to show, and that you’re not in a position where you feel it’s based on others’ expectations rather than your own decisions. That’s the true key to bringing your authentic self to work.

Reflecting on Success: my mountain, your mountain

I’m currently on holiday in the beautiful north east of England, and it turns out I picked the perfect fortnight to be away from work. My life is now subsumed by time in the sea and time in front of the TV watching the Tokyo Olympics. I am fully committed to both activities, but one in particular is really giving me food for thought – this week, I’m reflecting on success.

Team GB are just marvellous, and I never fail to be amazed at their tenacity and determination to succeed in such a wide range of sports (recently I’ve been transfixed by the BMX racing and the trampolining, and those women in the Rugby 7s are phenomenal). Yesterday, Dan Walker on the BBC was interviewing the amazing Helen Glover, just after she and her partner had come fourth in the women’s coxless pairs final. Dan was asking Helen about her feelings on the subject of medals, given that she has previously won gold in the Olympics, and Helen said this:

‘What does success look like to you? Success looks different for different people’.

She was making the point that being an Olympian in the first place is a remarkable achievement, and sometimes it’s about the journey as much as it’s about the medals. We’ve all seen the headlines referring to Helen as ‘supermum’ and ‘mother of three’, but it’s worth remembering that every person arriving in Tokyo has had their own mountain to climb.

I love that – medals, medals, medals are the focus of all commentary at the Olympics, naturally, but I love hearing about the back stories and adventures of Olympians, whether they end with a medal or not. Apart from anything else, anyone who’s had to spend a year working at home has had periods of frustration and demotivation – imagine being a team player but not being able to work with your team while preparing for an Olympic games.

I’ve often spoken about the importance of understanding what success might look like to ourselves as individuals, rather than measuring success according to some (perceived) societal, professional or organisational norm. In midwifery, I remember part of the path that led me to undertaking a doctorate was my awareness that formal leadership and managerial roles might not be my personal measure of career success – at that point in my career, at least. It didn’t mean I respected midwives holding those roles any less, it just meant I understood my own strengths and weaknesses, and career preferences.

In my workshops and one-to-one coaching sessions, I encourage midwives to really think deeply about what success might look like to them. It may be that they aspire to a Head of Midwifery position, but equally they may want to be the best band 6 midwife they can be, or move into education or research. The point is, it really doesn’t matter: as Helen Glover says, success to you is going to look different from success using someone else’s perspective.

This week, success for me is getting into the sea every day (with wetsuit, obviously – I’m not mad!) and also continuing to learn about many sports I’ve never previously encountered. And anyone who knows me, knows there’s my devotion to Love Island to add into the mix as well. It’s going to be a busy week!

Leading Change: a succession of little things

Last weekend, I spent a very happy couple of hours at the Van Gogh immersive exhibition in York (which I highly recommend if you like a combination of deckchairs in a church, beautiful music, and all things Van Gogh). A number of quotes from Van Gogh were included during the exhibition, including this one:

‘The great does not happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together’.

On further investigation, it transpires that Van Gogh wrote these words in 1882 as part of a letter to his brother, Theo. He was talking about an ‘invisible iron wall’ that seemed to stand between feeling and acting in the context of creating drawings, and how breaking through that wall was a process requiring patience and perseverance.

I found myself very much drawn to that phrase, ‘a succession of little things’. It reminded me of my old pal, the Pig of Happiness – anyone who’s heard me speak will know he’s one of my guiding lights.

You can read more about my enduring love for the happy pig here, and I’m delighted that both he and Van Gogh are expressing the same idea: that for change to happen, we can’t expect to wave a magic wand and *ta-dah!*. Rather, we must be patient and keep persevering with our goal in mind.

I think anyone who has experienced or led organisational change can relate to this: it’s a long and winding road, and at times those invisible iron walls along the way, as suggested by Van Gogh, can seem insurmountable.

As Van Gogh goes on to say in the same letter,

‘And the great is not something accidental; it must be willed’.

Working with Insights Discovery has taught me so much about this idea of will in the context of leadership and change. Because we’re all complex beings, made up of many parts, ‘will’ is going to mean different things to different people. For some, it’s about driving change, leading from the front. For others, it might be about using charm and friendliness to persuade (maybe employing the old tea and cake methodology). For many of the healthcare professionals I’ve worked with, leading change is about understanding others’ perspectives and incorporating collaborative approaches. The point is, it’s always got to be up to us as individuals to understand what ‘will’ means to us, and then think about how our own inner Pig might approach change. And finally, work out what the succession of little things might be, in order to get over that progress-impeding wall.

If you’d like to know more about how Why Not can support you and your team in the context of change, get in touch. For now, pop along to watch the short cartoon about the Pig of Happiness and then consider your own approach to change. I challenge you to seek out some other Pigs and have a conversation about what ‘will’ looks like for each of you – you’ll definitely find that getting over the invisible wall can happen in a multitude of ways!

Knowing your Values: why it matters in leadership and in life

When I began this blog a couple of weeks ago to launch Why Not, I thought I would just be writing about all things midwifery leadership and identity. So how did I come to be writing a post about knowing your values?

I’ve realised that in reflecting on the process of setting up the business I’m also finding lots of links with the work I do around developing career and leadership thinking. So I’ve decided to blog about the path I’m on personally as well – establishing Why Not is quite the journey (oops, there’s that word – but actually, it’s entirely apt). I’ll be writing some of my posts to reflect on my experiences along the way, and to suggest how these reflections might also link to leadership more generally.

I’m a big fan of books (and podcasts, and videos, and websites…) that can offer guidance when I do something new and exciting, so I’ll be discussing some of these from time to time. This week, I wanted to mention Rebecca Jones‘s very clear and thought-provoking book, Business Start-up Your Own Way. In it, Rebecca guides the reader through the start-up process, beginning with the big questions about why you might want to run your own business. This week, I was doing some work on the chapter, Your Value System, and this stood out for me:

‘If you feel your business is in line with your morals, values and beliefs you will believe in your business… Ultimately, your value system will help underpin your mission statement and your purpose’.

The importance of knowing our personal values is discussed in the leadership context, too, in terms of both self-leadership and leading others:

In the context of self-leadership, values are linked to the central theme of self-awareness: ‘Self-awareness is about knowing your intentions and values’ – Andrew Bryant

And in leading others: ‘We are able to lead with greater clarity around who we are and what vision we’re working towards when we lead with our values’ – Carly Sime

So while I’ve discussed the importance and development of personal values in relation to leadership before, the idea of how my own values might impact the development of Why Not has been a new thought exercise.

The funny thing is, I actually found it quite tricky to write down my personal values, which is part one of the exercise. It turns out that even if you feel like you know what guides you, it can be a challenge to get this into words and phrases! Luckily, I found this page at Mindtools to help, and was able to identify particular words I might associate with my values. From there, I wrote down five key phrases, and these are a summary of my values:

Stay curious

Count your blessings

Value relationships

Do your best

Be kind

In doing that exercise, I realised that the values I identified are my guides in whichever bit of my life I’m thinking about. I could apply these values to my home life, to the work roles I’ve held in the past (whether in music, midwifery or academia), and to this latest adventure in business building. My next step is to condense and mould those phrases into my mission statement, and that’s a work in progress. For now, I’m playing with words and thinking a lot.

Now, over to you – are you able to articulate your personal values and make links between them and how you live and work? I’d recommend this as a really useful reflective exercise, particularly if you’re thinking about how you might behave as a leader (of self or others). And if you’re considering starting your own business, Rebecca Jones’s book is fab – her positive language is especially good for those times when you’re questioning whether it’s really possible to go it alone!

What is a midwife? The value of shared identity

Image by Andrea Piacquadio at Pexels

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, I presented at the (virtual) International Confederation of Midwives‘ Triennial Congress on June 30th. My subject was identity in midwifery (‘What is a Midwife?’), but the presentation took on a life of its own due to the immense amount of time that has passed since I submitted the original abstract – that was back in the early summer of 2019, and of course I’ve been doing a lot of work with midwives and other maternity care workers since then.

When I wrote the abstract, my subtitle was ‘Competing narratives of identity among clinical and managerial midwives’, and the presentation was due to discuss my doctoral research findings about how clinical and non-clinical midwives narrate the issue of identity quite differently at times, and how this can create tensions within the profession. Here’s an example of that discord in midwifery narratives:

‘I absolutely am a midwife through and through. I am a midwife who recognises her scope of practice, and I mean an enhanced scope of practice – my expertise is no longer the actual delivery of individualised clinical care. My expertise is in the macro-midwifery. And I think that’s one of the things we get hung up on, and why people say they don’t want to be heads of midwifery, because they’re not doing midwifery any more. And actually, they are’ (Susan, former head of midwifery)

‘I realise senior managers were once midwives, and I’m pretty sure originally they went into this for the same kind of reasons as myself, however ‘the needs of the service’ seem to have turned them into the kind of people who think it acceptable to give no thought whatsoever to midwives and staff as actual human beings instead of numbers to meet the needs of this service’ (clinical midwife)

Since I submitted the original abstract, I’ve been lucky enough to spend a couple of years exploring what we might do to build a bridge across those narratives, and how understanding midwifery as a profession that encompasses a range of clinical and non-clinical roles might support the development of a positive professional identity – and in turn, further understanding of the midwifery identity among relevant stakeholder groups. If we’re better able to understand the profession as a group singing from the same hymn sheet (and after all, I really do think we’re generally trying to achieve the same thing, wherever we sit), then other professional groups, Trust and Health Board managers, and of course women and their families, will also gain a new clarity and depth of awareness about the professional identity of midwifery, and how important it is.

So my presentation evolved into something more positive: the subtitle was now ‘Developing shared narratives of identity across the profession’, and I was able to highlight some of the work I’ve been doing to support personal, team and leadership development in midwifery. You’ll know by now that I’m using Insights Discovery as the framework to support the work I’m doing, and it felt good to be able to describe the positive reception that’s had so far. Most of all, it felt great to be moving beyond the findings from my research – after all, the reason I undertook the doctorate was because I wanted to find ways to enhance the midwifery professional identity.

When I completed the doctorate, a friend asked me what was the one thing I would like to do to move the research on. I said that I’d like to get midwives from every part of the profession around a big table, in order to explore and celebrate what we share, rather than what divides us. Why Not gives me the opportunity to do exactly that, and I’m excited to be part of the conversation around a very well-populated metaphorical table.

A new adventure in midwifery leadership development

Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels

It’s June 2021, and we’re at the back end of nearly 18 months of restricted living. Out of the blue, I find myself at something of a crossroads, career-wise. I need to make decisions about where exactly I should go next, and that’s a tricky process. Midwifery leadership development has been my working life obsession since about 2009, so I really want to stay in that world.

When I was doing my doctoral research, one of my supervisors came up with the idea that I should regard myself as one of the subjects of the study, because like the midwifery leaders I was observing and interviewing, I too was going through something of an identity transition. Having been first a musician, then a midwife, I was now in a liminal space: if I stayed in the Business School, where the doctorate was based, how would I ever be able to call myself a midwife again? But if I went back to clinical midwifery, as a band 6 with a doctorate, I wasn’t going to fit in very well and I knew I would struggle to move the research on in any practical way.

So I spent the next few years flitting between disciplines: some years spent as a maternity care researcher at the University of Nottingham, then some time as a lecturer in leadership and management at Newcastle Business School. Finally, I took up a role that seemed to incorporate both practical and academic elements, enabling me to work with midwives to support their career and leadership development – but here, of all places, my identity came to be challenged (and ultimately rejected) beyond anything I would have expected.

So here I am, in June 2021, remembering something a very good friend once said to me. I was sharing my worries about belonging nowhere at the end of my doctorate, and she said, ‘You won’t belong nowhere, you’ll belong everywhere’. I’ve never forgotten that, and it’s the principle that will drive this business idea: I’m bringing clinical experience, meaning I can speak the language of midwifery and healthcare, academic understanding of leadership and identity questions, and practical tools to support midwives’ learning. If I can do anything to help the midwifery profession develop a strong identity and support the development of our future leaders and effective teams, then it doesn’t really matter what my own identity might be – and maybe that’s at the heart of belonging everywhere: being useful to lots of people in lots of contexts.

Today I’ll be presenting on the subject of midwifery leadership and identity at the International Confederation of Midwives‘ Triennial Congress – it would have been in Bali, but for obvious reasons it’s now a Zoom event *sigh*. This seemed like a good day to launch Why Not, so pop along to my shiny new homepage to explore what I’ve been up to lately. There you’ll find lots of information about how I’m working to support midwifery career, leadership and team development – using some very colourful psychometric profiling tools, a giraffe, and an unusually happy pig!