Kennedy warns UK NHS Managers about the dangers from the ‘Cult of Leadership’
Danny Kennedy MLA, Deputy Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, has addressed a group of National Health Service senior managers from across the UK at Parliament Buildings in Stormont on the theme of leadership.
The NHS managers were delegates at an event organised by the King’s Fund, an independent charitable foundation working to promote better health through developing policy and fostering innovation and leadership in the health service.
Mr Kennedy told the delegates :
“Leadership, in my experience, is as much about behaviour as it is about skills. Skills can be taught. Behaviour is more difficult. It is often intrinsic to the individual and, to this extent, leaders are often born and not made.”
“Leadership is also about style. The style that may suit one situation or set of circumstances may be wholly inappropriate in another. What is good one day can be bad on the next. A leader, for instance, can appear resolute on one occasion and, on another, dictatorial. Mrs Thatcher’s leadership is a case in point. It was suited to the Falklands War and to addressing the nation’s economic malaise in the early 1980’s. It appeared resolute in those contexts. When it came to Europe, it appeared, on the other hand, as intransigent. The enabling war leader became the obstacle in the way of progress a few years later.”
The Ulster Unionist Deputy Leader continued :
“That is why we need to be careful about the cult of leadership. Such a raising of the leader to almost venerated status, can cause massive political angst when they have outlived their usefulness and their political time. People eventually become exhausted by the demands of an authoritarian leadership. Such a leadership is also highly personal and few successors can replicate it.”
“Leaders,” he said,” should never be afraid to be courageous.
Quoting British Prime Minister Lloyd George he said :
“Don’t be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small steps.”