Public Health Leadership

Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH LEADERSHIP
PUBLIC HEALTH LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1PUBLIC HEALTH LEADERSHIP
Part 1:
Helen is a 35 year old General Practitioner who has been mentioned to have a practice
experience of 5 years in Warnambool (Victoria). She has dispensed excellent services within the
council of Warnambool where she has helped in spreading awareness about cancer screening
programs and has also increased child immunization rates. The community board strongly felt
that there was a need to appoint a public health officer in the area and Helen was nominated for
her significant contribution toward the improvement of community services. However, as a
public health officer Helen would need to take care of multiple concerns such as sanitation,
housing and infection control apart from primary health care services. Helen also needs to
consider that the community comprises of a significant proportion of the ageing population and
also hosts people belonging to multiple cultural beliefs. Helen seems to be extremely promising
as a leader, however as she is a young single women, her leadership skills are perceived as
skeptical by the community members as well as the policy makers and the town planners. As a
public health officer, Helen would need to keep in mind a number of factors that influence
effective leadership and management skills. This is important as it will govern her leadership
skills and help her manage her responsibilities. In addition to this, it has also been mentioned that
she has been allotted 10 staff under her who would be directly reporting to her. This suggests that
she needs to effectively communicate and direct the staff members so as to implement policies
that could help in promoting positive outcome. This paper intends to critically analyze the
Australian Health Leadership Framework so as to assess the case scenario and highlight the key
areas that Helen must focus on so as to positive contribute to the development of the community.
In addition to this, in the subsequent sections of the paper a self-assessment would be undertaken
using the leadership-assessment tool followed by a discussion on the findings. Finally, the last

2PUBLIC HEALTH LEADERSHIP
section of the paper would present a reflection on my personal skills and the course of action that
would have been undertaken by me if I was in place of Helen.
The Australian Health Leadership identifies a leader as an individual who can lead one
self, engage others, achieve outcomes, drives innovation and shapes systems (Aims.org.au,
2019). The framework emphasizes upon the need of leadership for a people focused health
system which is subsequently equitable, effective and at the same time sustainable (Aims.org.au,
2019). The framework critically suggests that leaders within the healthcare system must
endeavor to improve the quality of life indicators, the overall clinical outcome and the wellbeing
of the health system. According to West et al. (2014), the quality of leadership is tightly linked to
the quality of patient care outcomes. In the words of Mah’d Alloubani et al. (2014), leadership
style directly affects the satisfaction, trust, conviction and the commitment of the team members
in a project. As mentioned by Mosadeghrad and Ferdosi (2013), a number of organizational
factors such as work environment and pay scale affects the performance of the workforce,
however, leadership style plays the central role in driving employee commitment.
Upon closely analyzing the case scenario provided, it can be said that the community
where Helen has been nominated as a health officer is laden with a number of challenges. Helen
needs to take note of these challenges and accordingly devise a course of action. Firstly, she
needs to improve the primary healthcare delivery system so as to foster effective health care
delivery to the community population. Next, as has been mentioned that there is no provision of
specialized care services and as a result the community people need to 300 km in order to assess
care facilities. This causes inconvenience and at the same time due to lack of proper medical
services, the community has witnessed a high morbidity and mortality rate. Therefore, Helen
must improve the health outcomes of the community people. At the same time, it must be