Looking beyond tasks to develop flexible leadership

There is a determination within health and social care to make leaders and leadership better and more able to face the challenges within an ever-changing social, political and organisational landscape. However, this presents difficulties, especially as workplace culture and climate may make people unlikely to take different leadership approaches. This paper reports on the findings of an evaluation of a leadership development programme delivered to senior leaders in health and social care. It uses qualitative data to demonstrate that, even in a safe, risk-free environment, health and social care leaders approach a hypothetical scenario in a defensive, hierarchical and expert-led manner; only after they were given ‘expert’ permission to change leadership style, did they act collectively and seek to adopt a transformational style of leadership