Developing effective managers and leaders within health and social care contexts

With six objectives in mind we aim to address the important issue of managerial and leadership effectiveness within health and social care contexts in general and the British National Health Service (NHS) in particular. Our first objective is to explain why this topic should be considered of critical importance to HRD practitioners both in the UK, Europe and the USA. The second is to highlight the sparseness of research currently underpinning this field of study and practice, and the pressing need for practice-grounded research specifically designed to inform and support HRD initiatives and interventions aimed at improving the effectiveness of managers and leaders within the health and social care sector. Our third objective is to provide a summary of the empirical base that does exist in the UK, and in particular to describe in some detail the results of a recent study we have carried out into the criteria of managerial and leadership effectiveness applying within the Birmingham Women’s Healthcare NHS Trust (BWHT). Our fourth objective is to provide insights into the way these BWHT research findings have been, and are being, used to bring about strategic change in the management culture of BWHT through research informed and evidence-based HRD, OD and HR interventions. Our fifth objective is to reveal the extent to which the BWHT research results have been found generalized to the findings of other researchers who have studied managerial and leadership effectiveness in the NHS, and to show how the results of these comparisons provide empirical support for ‘universalistic’ models of management and managerial leadership. Our sixth and final objective is to draw the attention of readers, particularly HRD practitioners striving to become more evidence-based in their own professional practice within health and social care settings, to the merits of the concept of ‘HRD Professional Partnership’ research as advocated by Jacobs (1997) in the USA, and as applied by Hamlin and Cooper (2005) in BWHT and previously by Hamlin et al. (1998) and Hamlin (2002a) in various other UK public sector organizations.