PUBH6004: Report on Leadership and Effecting Change in Public Health

This report analyzes a scenario involving a young general practitioner, Helen, who is appointed as a public health officer in Warrnambool, Australia. The report examines the challenges Helen faces, including community engagement and the need for innovation, particularly in addressing the lack of specialist care in remote areas. It applies the Australian Health Leadership Framework (Health LEADS) to the scenario, focusing on leading self, engaging others, achieving outcomes, driving innovation, and shaping the system. The report includes a self-assessment of leadership qualities, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and proposes an action plan using the SMART framework to achieve specific goals, such as implementing telehealth solutions. The analysis considers the importance of effective communication, stakeholder engagement, and the need to address resistance to change within the community and among traditional stakeholders. The report highlights the significance of leadership in improving health outcomes and promoting a healthy environment.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND EFFECTING CHANGE IN PUBLIC HEALTH
AUSTRALIAN HEALTH LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Analysis of Scenario..................................................................................................................2
Leadership Self-Assessment tool...............................................................................................5
Demonstrating Personal Qualities..........................................................................................5
Working with Others..............................................................................................................5
Managing Services.................................................................................................................5
Improving Services................................................................................................................6
Setting Direction....................................................................................................................6
Creating the Vision................................................................................................................6
Delivering the strategy...........................................................................................................6
Reflection on the Scenario.........................................................................................................7
Action plan on the scenario....................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The Health system is known for its complexity, and it is continuously evolving for
enhancing the qualitative care towards the people and community (Mossialos et al., 2016).
Multiple key stakeholders in the health system work together to improve the overall health
outcomes. Health leaders play a significant role in monitoring and administering these
stakeholders in achieving their responsibilities (Sethuraman & Suresh, 2014). They influence
their subordinates and other key stakeholders of the health system to enhance the quality of
life. This report aim is to analyse the scenario of leadership in Australian public health and
provide reflection upon the self-assessment of leadership style to apply to the scenario and
overcomes the gaps.
Australian Health Leadership Framework: Health LEADS Australia
Health LEADS was formulated through multiple research and considering inputs from
700 individuals. The major five areas that the health LEADS focuses on leading self,
engaging others, achieving outcomes, drives innovation, and shapes system. As the health
system is dynamic and complex, leadership must be owned by every individual for effective
health outcomes. If the capacity of leaders improves, then the overall health system would
also improve. The major principle of health LEADS is based on the multiple leadership styles
approaches as multiple styles would enhance various ways and strengths for providing a
better health system (Australian government Initiative, 2013).
Analysis of Scenario
The scenario talks about Helen, who is a young 35 years old general practitioner.
Helen has always worked towards the welfare of the people that have enhanced the
immunisation rates along with increased awareness regarding the screening program for

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cancer. Thus, such practices made her recognise by the council in Warrnambool. She was
nominated as a public health officer in the area where she served her services. In addition to
this, there was a new mandate for Helen to promote a healthy environment in the
communities. Promoting health in communities would involve the whole population of the
community instead of primary care. The services included in this health promotion are
sanitation, immunisation program, and infection control measures. Therefore, it would
involve diverse culture, traditional planners, and architect of town and policymakers, and
they influence the health initiatives along with they do not appreciate younger female leaders.
Helen needs to practice leadership that would influence her subordinates and member
of the community to work together in promoting the community health outcomes. In the
Australian health framework, the leaders following or implementing the health LEADS
would result in promoting effective health services. As Helen is a young female, her
leadership is not viewed effectively. Therefore, initially, she needs to lead herself to
understand and assess self-value. She needs to interact with other stakeholders for personnel
development and strengthen her leadership. The second approach is engaging others; with the
help of effective communication, Helen needs to listen to all the ideas and feedback from the
other stakeholders and should participate in any difficult conversation. This would lead Helen
to build a good relationship with the policymakers and other stakeholders of the health
system. The third element in achieving the outcomes. Helen is promoting a healthy
environment in the entire community, and achieving this outcome, she needs continual
monitoring and evaluation for analysing any gap areas. She has found that the remote area
lack in providing specialist treatment as there were no specialist center or settings. People of
the community need to travel 300 km away from town for availing specialist care. Thus,
solving the gap would help Helen in achieving an effective health outcome.

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Driving innovation is an effective approach for improving and building practice for a
change (Mandl, Mandel & Kohane, 2015). As there was lack of specialist care, the deaths
were also increasing. Thus, Helen is driving the innovation in the change of practices in
delivering the care or treatment to the community. The elderly or older population suffers
most as they are the vulnerable group who needs access to healthcare. Thus, Helen thought of
practicing the teleconsultation along with telesurgery with her peers and subordinates.
Implementation of such practice would ease the pain of the community in availing the health
for specialised cases. This implementation would also help in analysing the outcome of the
health status and make the necessary changes that are creating a gap in the deliveries of
health services. The last factor of health LEADS is shaping the system. As the health system
is lacking with the specialised care providers and care settings, the health system in the town
should shape for addressing the gaps and issues. As a public health officer, Helen has
received multidisciplinary supporting staff such as environmental officers, nursing
professionals, IT support, bio-statistician, and administrations. They are the key stakeholders
who directly report and assist to Helen in promoting the health activities in the community.
She should have effective communication with these stakeholders in implementing the
innovations of practicing the telesurgery and teleconsultation. Engaging them in decision
making would help in a more innovative approach and would also help in building trust
between Helen and her subordinates that eventually lead to building a good relationship.
Apart from this innovation, Helen should ally with other players of the health system to
achieving the gaps and resolve the issues that have arisen in delivering the health services in
the community. This approach would lead to a generation of many ideas and methods as
every individual has a set of viewpoints. Thus, leading to minimize or decrease the
unintentional consequences.

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The board has also provided funds to implement in any initiatives or innovations for
significant changes in the health outcome of the community. By the end of the year, Helen
needs to bring an effective positive change in the health outcome of the community. She
already has a record of increasing the immunisation rate among the people, and with effective
support and by practicing health LEADS approach, the health system would see the changes
in the improvement. According to Dickson et al. (2014), implementing health LEADS has
improves the organisation culture, better patient outcome, addressing health disparities and
inequalities and promotes safer and qualitative health systems.
Leadership Self-Assessment tool
It is important to analyse the leadership qualities for understanding the gap areas of health.
The leadership framework self-assessment tool would help in analysing the leadership by
considering multiple parameters (NHS, 2012). The tool includes seven dimensions, and they
are as follows:
Demonstrating Personal Qualities
I have found that I lack certain parameters such as I do not speak out when the ethics
or values are compromised and my action on integrity is moderate. I have found that
sometimes, I cannot remain calm under pressure.
Working with Others
The weakness is in encouraging the contribution from the others and also could not feel
comfortable in solving the conflicts due to differences in the viewpoint of the peers or staff.
The tool has also identified that I believe in working collaboratively with other players that
would enhance the healthcare outcomes; however, I feel reluctant to share any data or
information with other networks. This area does not need any future development as the
information should not be passed on without any reliable condition.

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Managing Services
I have found out that managing the services is a strong point; however, while planning the
services, the opinion from the patients and consumers are not considered. Thus, these areas
need to overcome with the necessary measures.
Improving Services
In the assessment tool, I have found that I am lacking to evaluate with the others people for
improving the services critically. Whereas, the feedback from the patients and consumers are
considered for improving the services. I encourage innovation and any necessary changes for
improving the qualitative services; however, I do not mostly encourage any debate regarding
the new ideas. Also, sometimes I do not articulate the necessity of change that may have an
impact on the people or to the services.
Setting Direction
From the assessment tool, I have found that I need to develop in identifying the drivers or
factors for setting the direction of the organisation. These factors are the social, political,
economic, and professional environment of the organisation. I also take formal and informal
approaches for making any decision, and that may sometime act as overplayed strengths and
thus can negatively affect the outcome or performance.
Creating the Vision
The creation of vision is important; however, I do not involve patents and consumers in
identifying the direction for the organisation. This area needs to develop further for the
effective development of the vision. It was found that I believe moderate in implementing the
symbol or any ritual for developing the vision. I still think this factor does not need future
development.

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Delivering the strategy
From the assessment tool, there was the only single factor that is lacking in me while
providing an effective strategy for the organisation. While making the necessary changes or
developing the strategy, I lack mitigating the uncertainties along with the same risks that are
associated with strategic choices. I strongly adopt the history along with the culture of the
organisation for formulating or delivering the strategy, which may also act as overplayed
strength as the new strategy needs to be based on the current scenarios and future trends.
Reflection on the Scenario
In the given scenario, the majority of stakeholders such as policymakers, a senior
citizen of the community along with traditional architects of town are skeptical in addressing
the younger female as a leader. I have to analysed my leadership style and then use my
strength keys to address the issues and bring effective health promotion to the community of
the town. With the help of the self-assessment tool, I understood my strong point. Besides,
the gap has also been identified.
Action plan on the scenario
For the action plan, I would take the help of health LEADS and SMART term for
effectively reaching my goals. SMART focuses on specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic,
and time-bound. My first action is to identify the particular requirement that is in the
scenario, and it was necessary to promote the health in the community and find out the gap
that is hindering in the service of the health system (Reed et al., 2017). As health LEADS
states that the initial stage is to lead self, I am good at seeking opportunities, however, lacks
in integrity and therefore, I would speak with the traditional stakeholder in understanding the
health system of the community. This would also lead engagement with them and build trust
with them.

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As it was found about the lack of specialised clinic or settings are leading major
issues specifically for older people. I am efficient in making strategy, and therefore, I would
formulate planning by taking consideration of viewpoints from a multidisciplinary individual
for an effective solution. The concept of telehealth concept would be broadly discussed with
all the stakeholders that include the individuals of the community. It is important to note the
reaction of the people about the changes that are going to implement in the health services.
For achieving the outcome of the health services, it is important to direct effective
communication (Cardon, 2014). Since I am good at motivating others to for adopting the
necessary changes, the implementation of telehealth technology should be communicated
effectively with my subordinates, consumers, and all the related stakeholders. The
stakeholders should be aware of the features of this technology, such as teleconsultation and
telesurgery (Dorsey & Topol, 2016).
By critically analysing and evaluating the feedback received from multidisciplinary
stakeholders and individuals of the community, I would bring the necessary improvement
accordingly. Further, I would consider every stakeholder to share any ideas to make the
decision to implement telehealth technology. I would also collaborate with multiple
voluntarily groups or institutes and any other health agency that works towards the promotion
of health services or health systems (Ishii et al., 2017). It is also important to consider the
time-bound for formulating my action plan. By the end of the year, the board would follow
up with the necessary changes; therefore, I need to implement strategy and improve the
overall health system of the community. Thus, leading to formulating the healthy
communities.

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Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that healthcare leaders play a
significant role in providing effective services to the individual and community. Thus, they
improve the quality and wellbeing of the overall health system. This report has analysed the
scenario of Helen to practice an effective leadership style. Besides, the report also gives the
self-assessment of leadership style with the help of a leadership assessment tool. If the
leaders are aware of their strengths and weakness in their leadership practice, then it would
improve the overall health outcomes.

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References
Australian government Initiative. (2013). Health LEADS Australia: the Australian health
leadership framework (pp. 1-10). Australian government Initiative. Retrieved from
https://www.aims.org.au/documents/item/352
Cardon, P. W. (2014). Business Communication: Developing Leaders for a Networked World
(3e). McGraw-Hill.
Dickson, G., Owen, K., Sebastian, A., Fulop, L., Dadich, A., Fitzgerald, A., ... & Smyth, A.
(2014). Health LEADS Australia and implications for medical leadership. Leadership
in Health Services.
Dorsey, E. R., & Topol, E. J. (2016). State of telehealth. New England Journal of
Medicine, 375(2), 154-161.
Ishii, L., Demski, R., Lee, K. K., Mustafa, Z., Frank, S., Wolisnky, J. P., ... & Unger, A. S.
(2017, March). Improving healthcare value through clinical community and supply
chain collaboration. In Healthcare (Vol. 5, No. 1-2, pp. 1-5). Elsevier.
Mandl, K. D., Mandel, J. C., & Kohane, I. S. (2015). Driving innovation in health systems
through an apps-based information economy. Cell systems, 1(1), 8-13.
Mossialos, E., Wenzl, M., Osborn, R., & Sarnak, D. (2016). 2015 international profiles of
health care systems. Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health.
NHS. (2012). The Leadership Framework Self assessment tool (pp. 1-14). NHS. Retrieved
from
https://www.leadershipacademy.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/NHSLeadership-
Framework-LeadershipFrameworkSelfAssessmentTool.pdf

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Reed, T. L., Drozda Jr, J. P., Baskin, K. M., Tcheng, J., Conway, K., Wilson, N., ... &
Krucoff, M. W. (2017, December). Advancing medical device innovation through
collaboration and coordination of structured data capture pilots: report from the
Medical Device Epidemiology Network (MDEpiNet) Specific, Measurable,
Achievable, Results-Oriented, Time Bound (SMART) think tank. In Healthcare (Vol.
5, No. 4, pp. 158-164). Elsevier.
Sethuraman, K., & Suresh, J. (2014). Effective leadership styles. International Business
Research, 7(9), 165.