Leadership Analysis: Public Health Officer in Warnambool, Australia

This report analyzes the leadership management skills of a public health officer, Helen, in Warnambool, Australia. It examines her challenges in promoting community health, focusing on factors like community engagement, diverse demographics, and stakeholder management. The report is divided into three parts: the first analyzes Helen's role and leadership principles within the Australian public health framework; the second utilizes a self-assessment tool to evaluate her strengths and weaknesses across various leadership domains; and the third provides a self-reflection and action plan for improvement. The report highlights the importance of communication, collaboration, and adapting leadership strategies to effectively address community health issues, improve services, and implement effective strategies. The assignment uses the case study of a public health officer and her challenges to provide a detailed look at leadership in public health.

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

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Abstract
The aim of this assignment is to analyze the position of a recently made public health officer and
the leadership management skills of her in the health care of the community. Followed by this
analysis a self assessment of Helen discussed on the basis of the self assessment tool. In this self
assessment discussion the strengths of the person and the skill gaps also described. Following all
these parts a self reflection also given where the strengths and skill gaps described on the basis of
the self assessment tool and there is a description of the action plan of the person as well.

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Table of Contents
PART 1............................................................................................................................................3
Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
Discussion....................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................5
PART 2............................................................................................................................................6
Introduction..................................................................................................................................6
Discussion....................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................13
PART 3..........................................................................................................................................14
Introduction................................................................................................................................14
Discussion..................................................................................................................................14
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16

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PART 1
Introduction
Helen, a general practitioner practicing in Warnambool of Victoria state of Australia for 5
years nominated for the public health officer in that area. As a leader she needs to promote
healthy community practices and also focus on population health rather than individual health.
She took several decisions as a health officer; however, she was not accepted by some of the
community people and the organization people as well. The following section would focus on
the health leadership principles of Australia, challenges, goals and the improvement planning of
Helen.
Discussion
Helen as a public health officer changed her practices of individual care planning and
individual prioritization practices as well. She also focused on the improvement of the
Warnambool community health practices. She was provided with her own office and 10 staffs
including environment officer, nurses, IT support, bio-statisticians and some administrators as
well. She was an experienced general practitioner thus she has a good amount of knowledge on
the condition of the community and on the basis of those knowledge she decided to improve the
community by changing the area to some extent. She decided to incorporate the system of
teleconsultation and telesurgery as well as the community is in a remote area and lacks
specialists thus the patients need to travel 300 kilometer towards the nearest city. She also
thought about empowering and engaging with the community people to spread awareness about
healthy living among them. Her new job profile includes the responsibilities of immunization,
sanitation, infection control and housing planning as well. Thus she realized all these factors

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needed to be improved by means of community health service programs. All these improvement
programs need to be done with the help of engaging with the people and also with the help of
empowerment programs. However, the people of the community are not open to the female
leaders despite the familiarity of her as the general practitioner in the community. The
community is comprised of different aged, diverse, multi-ethnic people including town planners,
architects and others. All these factors bring challenges in front of Helen as a public health
officer. In order to overcome all these challenges Helen needs to be an influential health leader
of the community and needs to focus on engaging the community, health promotion programs,
disease prevention, environmental health issues, look over the equitable resource management,
sustainable food source findings and many other factors.
Helen needs to consider the principles of health leading practice that are as following:
 Everyone owns leadership
 Developing capable leaders builds health leadership capacity
 The person you are is the leader you are (Day & Leggat, 2015)
According to these principles everyone needs to share the responsibilities of leadership and also
develop and improve their capabilities as the leader. The leaders need to engage with everyone of
the community to influence them for better health outcomes. The personality and the attitude of
the leader is the key factor for this framework as it maintains the influential aspect of a leader
over the community. However, in case of Helen she is a person with experience of general
practitioner in the community and also sets her goal in terms of improving the community thus
her introvert nature also creates challenge for her decisions and empower program she planned
for the community health awareness. The Government stakeholders of health care, policy
makers, senior citizen of the community and also stakeholders of the community also not certain

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about the effectiveness of her work as the health officer. Her introverted nature also prevents her
to manage many subordinates who reports directly to him and the stakeholders as well. She is not
experienced in all these things as well. She needs to find out her own way to develop proper
relationship with all the stakeholders of the system.
The goals of the health leader are to provide effective clinical outcomes, equitable health
care to all the people despite of their inequality and sustainability for the present and future
generation as well. The leader has other goals focused on the people that mean providing best
health care to a people and also creating health system that organized several people whose
primary purpose is to improve health in the community (Day & Leggat, 2015). In order to focus
on this goals Helen decided to change some factors in the system and also take some measures to
find the environmental issues of health. Health lead in Australia also need to focus on
strengthening health leadership training, linking leadership and health education training,
supporting the Torres Strait Island people and the Aboriginal people as well, promoting
collaborative leadership and improving quality and safety in all over the system. All these factors
needed to be incorporated in the leadership management system of Helen in Warnambool
community. She needs to find out the ways to improve the engaging and the empowerment
program with the community people as they are introverted in nature and she needs to develop
health promoting activities along with gather knowledge about their issues to implicate different
changes with this context of providing health care.
Conclusion
On the basis of the above discussion it can be concluded that Helen needs to improve her
communication with the stakeholders to manage the situations and provide health care and
manage the health issues of the community which comprised of different ethnic and cultural

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people. She needs to follow the Australian health leadership framework in order to improve her
leadership management in providing proper care to the community people. She also needs to
focus on the engaging factor and empowerment factors to provide health education among the
people of the community.
PART 2
Introduction
Self-assessment tool is used know about the gaps and the strengths of a person in the
context of his or her job profile. Here as a public health leader I need to develop a proper
knowledge about my strengths a leader and the factors I lack in this context as well. In the
following section I would describe my leadership abilities with the help of the The Leadership
Framework Self assessment tool.
Discussion
The self assessment tool comprised of 7 characteristic factors of a person that are as
follows:
 Demonstrating personal qualities
 Working with others
 Managing services
 Improving services
 Setting direction
 Creating the vision
 Delivering the strategy

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All these factors would be evaluated in this self assessment tool and scores of every domain
determines the strengths and the gaps in skills of me.
Demonstrating personal qualities
Figure 1: Demonstrating personal qualities
Source: (Created by Author)
According to these domain scores I am good at developing self awareness and continuing
personal plans. However, I have some gaps in managing myself and acting with integrity factors
of the domain. These factors needed to be self evaluated and improved with the help of my other
colleagues and seniors as well. I need to engage with them for the improvement of my skills of
management.
Working with others

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Figure 2: Working with others
Source: (Created by author)
According to the scores of this domain it can be said that I need to improve my skills on
collaborating with other workers of my organization and develop proper relationship with them
as well. I need to focus on this gap of my skill and need to show my authority as a leader of
health of a community. I need to show respect and also encourage my subordinates to improve
the health promotion programs along with engaging with community people to gather knowledge
about the health problems of the community and develop plans on the basis of that information.
Managing services

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Figure 3: Managing services
Source: (Created by author)
This domain score highlighted that I have good skill in the planning, managing resources
and managing my performances. However, I need to improve my skills of managing people. In
order to do so I need to follow my seniors and read some leadership articles as well.
Improving services

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Figure 4: Improving services
Source: (Created by author)
This domain shows I have moderate skills in the service management and also have great
gaps in the facility giving to the community people. I need to focus on the community people and
find a way to develop relationship with them.
Setting direction

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Figure 5: Setting direction
Source: (Created by author)
According to score of this domain it shows the huge gap in skills of setting the decision
with the help of my coworkers. This shows I need to collaborate more with them to develop any
plan and set that plans in a proper way.
Creating the vision