One benefit to the social media wave is the ability to follow and have access to individuals that one would not normally see or hear about. There are many opinion leaders in the social media world that use it as their medium to distribute information. It has only been over the last five years that my interest in social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, for more than connecting with family and friends has expanded. I have subscriptions to Palliative Medicine Journals and follow my Canadian Nurses Association through social media, but I have not followed a leader in the healthcare industry until recently.
Dr. Helen Bevan is a Director of Service Transformation for the National Health Service Institution (NHS) for Innovation and Improvement in England, UK. Simply put, she is a change agent and a quality improvement activist. I started following her on Twitter after a colleague of mine shared with me her involvement in supporting and facilitating large scale change efforts in leaders of health and care systems all around the world (The British Psychological Society, 2017). Her work has been extensive and geared towards innovation in approaching change. Instead of “Looking at a “top down” programme approach to service change and development […] creating a “bottom up” locally led grass roots movement for improvement and change” (Bate, Robert & Bevan, 2004, p.62) was her vision. Helen’s idea of building collaborative relationships and integration so change processes are more sustainable, of better quality, and achieved faster is expressed. Her Twitter account can be found here: https://twitter.com/helenbevan
One of the most significant ideas that she espouses as a leader surrounds her innovation around change management and looking at the principles of social movements and applying them to making healthcare improvements. The idea that leaders in social movements had far fewer formal resources, yet were able to produce change globally. These leaders were able to identify a cause that people connected with and within these groups, build commitment and agency (NHSR&DNW, 2015, 11:48). These principles of social movements were imbedded in her quality improvement and safe patient care initiatives within the NHS.
Why I find Dr. Bevan’s work so interesting and impactful is because it is so relevant in my practice. Healthcare is continually changing, and those changes directly affect the way we deliver care to our patients and families on a regular basis. In the last couple of years in my program alone, we have needed to change care procedures, written methods of comminution and even criteria to access our program. We do this to comply with our health authority and to meet Accreditation standards. What I continue to witness, is how most of these organizational changes are enforced on nurses from a top down approach and end up meeting resistance or are not viable for long. Knowing that a big part of my job is helping support nurses through change has sparked a desire in me to learn more about change movements and theories and how leaders and leadership styles can guide effective, sustainable change in an organization.
Other ideas that Dr. Bevan communicates about on her social media platforms is the importance of emotional intelligence in successful leadership and the value of resiliency training in the workplace. Dr. Bevan shares Northouse (2018) ideas about emotional intelligence and that “people who are more sensitive to their emotions and the impact of their emotions on others will be leaders who are more effective” (p. 29). Within the area of Palliative Care, having emotional intelligence is paramount. When you deal with and are surrounded by so much loss and grief, having awareness of your own emotions is crucial. In addition, how your emotions convey your presence in a situation, as well as your relationship with others is essential in my workplace. Likewise, with resiliency work and training, this is a common practice in my field of nursing because without these sets of skills and strategies for coping, in an emotionally charged environment, we become less effective in our work and ultimately burn out faster.
When looking into the social media platforms that Dr. Bevan is connected to, besides Twitter, I wasn’t surprised to find she has accounts with Facebook, Instagram and Linkedln. From following her on Twitter and listening to interviews on YouTube, she puts a great value on leaders connecting and building relationship through social media networks. With that said, she is very connected to her followers. I have not been following her for long on Twitter but I had found through YouTube and Google Scholar her work to be very compelling. Her posts and retweets on Twitter include current research on topics of quality improvements and safe patient care, as well as articles for development and strategy with a leadership focus.
To be honest, I really do not have too much advice for Dr. Bevan. In my short time following her, I have definitely been motivated and captivated. I have been impressed with how much she interacts with many people on Twitter, how she uses various pictures and graphs to get her message of important concepts across and through this, how genuine she seems. If anything, the only advice I would give her would be be to have permanent links at the top of Twitter page to some of previous conferences, interviews and research studies. Dr. Bevan is so active on Twitter that it took some time looking through all her posts. I think she could pin a few key links so that any new followers, like I was, can appreciate the extensiveness of her work.
As I tried to depict through this blog, Dr. Helen Bevan possesses many admirable values and principles in leadership through the work she has done and continues to do with patient change initiatives. Some of the similarities that we share in our leadership approach is our value of relationship connections and building community within our shared purpose. The idea that the groups we serve are most important and we are “committed to the growth of people (…) and treating each follower as a unique person with intrinsic value (…)” (Northouse, 2018, p. 230) alludes to our dedication in helping and appreciating others and what they bring to the table. The principle of empathy is captured by the care and consideration we show for others and the populations we are trying to make improvements for. The principle of awareness and possessing emotional intelligence in leadership to “understanding oneself and the impact one has on others” (Northouse, 2018, p. 229) is something we both place a high value on. Lastly, our shared value about integration for sustainable change being built on collaborative relationships and trust. People working together at all levels to bring about positive outcomes and empowering groups with shared goals and ideas.
References
Bate,P.,Robert,G & Bevan,H. (2004). The next phase of healthcare improvement: what can we learn from social movements? BMJ Quality & Safety. 13 (1), 62-66.
NHSR&DNW. (2015, October 11). Helen Bevan Interview
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxSK_BWld04
Northouse, P.G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice. (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
The British Psychological Society. (2017). Annual Conference: Leading Change into the future. Retrieved September 17, 2018, from
https://www1.bps.org.uk/system/files/user-files/Annual%20Conference%202017/Dr%20Helen%20Bevan.pdf
September 30, 2018 at 2:09 pm
Daneen, I appreciated the thoroughness of your post and the ideas you have articulated here. Even though I am in education, the principles you have highlighted in Bevan’s work resounds with me as well. Your description of her approach being “grass roots” through collaboration has been my experience, too. In order for long term sustainability change to occur in an organization, members need to feel connected and empowered. I like how you discussed agency and emotional intelligence. In education right now, as leaders, we talk about how to “build capacity” in our teachers for different elements of change. We look at what needs to change or be implemented, and then provide opportunities to “build capacity” in small steps. This may mean providing professional learning opportunities, engaging in mentorships, setting up team teaching experiences, or small assignments providing practice in management chunks. Through this process, teachers become more emotionally intelligent, more intentional, feel like they have agency, and are empowered to take the risks needed. Once all of these elements are in place, then school culture and programming easily shifts.
September 30, 2018 at 4:09 pm
Hi Dawn,
Thank you for your response and I appreciate your application of Dr. Bevan’s work to the education system. My parents were both teachers, in a rural community, and I can recall some of their frustrations and struggles throughout their teaching careers being around curriculum changes and not having the time or resources to pull material together for implementation. I know my mom, in particular, didn’t feel supported and she was left to pull material together herself to meet these curriculum changes, which was stressful for her. For my dad, being a high school PE teacher, he was expected to take on the coaching role for many of the teams. As I am sure you are aware, the commitment for team sports is huge and I think there wasn’t much consideration to the fact that he had his own family or plans. They have been retired for almost 8 years now, so maybe some things have changed, at least I hope so.
Daneen
September 30, 2018 at 7:40 pm
Hello Daneen,
I’m a local church pastor and trust me i have little understanding of the medical field, but the principle I’m appreciative is the people that make different disciplines successful. Your testimony of Dr Helen is inspiring and it’s clear you have learnt an awful lot from he work and her impact in her area of influence. Good detailed write up here.
October 1, 2018 at 1:25 pm
Hi Hassan,
Thank you for your message and words of appreciation 🙂
Daneen