Geoffrey's Bio
My name is Geoffrey Walker and I have been a nurse for almost 39 years. Throughout the whole of my career I have been a front-line acute nurse and leader, spending 16 years as a matron in an acute Trust, leading a wide variety of services, and now am a senior nursing advisor in a large county hospital. leadership is my passion and believe strongly we do not invest nearly enough in teaching, supporting and coaching new and existing leaders. My preferred leadership style is Authentic Leadership.
Follow Geoffrey on Twitter (X) here: @gwalkerpoole1
A summary of our discussion
In today's launch episode of the podcast, I spoke to Geoffrey Walker who is currently a senior nursing advisor for a large NHS trust. I broke the ice by asking Geoffrey what makes him smile which he replied "Enjoying what I am doing" and Geoffrey gave the example of smiling when the neighbour's cat jumped out at him in the dark, looking for some treats.
Geoffrey then responded to a quote I put to him. Do check into the podcast to see what this was.
Jumping into the main part of the podcast, Geoffrey gave his 3 points about how to be a better leader. These were to be brave, build self-resilience and not take things personally. Check these out on the podcast, it was great to hear all about them.
Geoffrey then told us about 2 examples of when leadership has gone well and these were a space he and his team have set up to allow band 7 nurse leaders a space to ask and seek support from Geoffrey on their struggles or issues. The other example was the work he is doing on international nurses joining the trust he works for by mapping them appropriately to where their skill set is best matched. I am sure you will love hearing about these two examples.
Lastly, as Geoffrey's 1 leadership style, he chose Authentic Leadership. Give the podcast a listen and you can read more about this leadership style below.
We closed the episode by asking Geoffrey what he is most grateful for in life. His response was as below:
"My health without a doubt"
Listen to the episode below
Watch the episode below
Delve into Authentic Leadership
This leadership style is fairly new in the world of nursing and healthcare although some might say long overdue. The style of leadership is about the leader having the ability to show transparency and their personal characteristics which requires a sense of self. These types of leaders are said to be genuine and real, having self-awareness, transparency, trustworthiness and reliability. This is all in the hope of gaining and growing followers where they can then lead by example by doing the right thing. The thing with authentic leaders is they believe they are doing the right thing.
Holroyd (2015) highlights that authentic leaders have four features:
Relational transparency - Openness and honesty
Balanced processing - Objective analysing
Internalised moral perspective - Guided by internal moral and ethical standards
Self-awareness - Based on values, beliefs, emotions and motives
Interestingly there are said to be some disadvantages to this style such as some of the literature suggesting if a leader is not an authentic leader is this suggesting they are inauthentic? Other literature has highlighted it is based on others such as followers perception of the leader and some worry there is a risk of being too authentic.
Further reading on Authentic Leadership
Websites:
Open access journal articles:
Footnotes
Why not take this fun personality test to find out your personality? Check it out here:
And also why not find out your leadership style based on a questionnaire? Try it here:
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