Stuart's Bio
Stuart Tuckwood is a registered Adult Nurse and the National Officer for Nursing at UNISON, the UK’s largest healthcare trade union. Having worked overseas in Latin America and Myanmar, Stuart practised clinically in neurosurgery, major trauma and critical care outreach at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge before taking up his role at UNISON. Stuart has a professional diploma in Tropical Nursing, as well as an MsC in Public Health from the University of London, and has spent time as a Director at the Florence Nightingale Foundation. Campaigns and priorities that Stuart leads for UNISON include safe staffing levels, ethical international recruitment and improving preceptorships for new registrants.
Follow Stuart on Twitter (X) here: @StuartTuckwood
Listen to the episode below
Watch the episode below
Summary of our discussion
In this episode of the podcast, I spoke to Stuart Tuckwood who is currently Unison's National Nursing Officer. I broke the ice by asking Stuart what has made him smile today and he told me about being excited about going on holiday with family at the end of the week as well as the sun being out for once.
Stuart then responded to a quote I put to him on leadership. Do check into the podcast to see what this was and Staurt's initial response.
Jumping into the main part of the podcast, Stuart gave his 3 points about how to be a better leader. They were to believe in yourself, treat people the way you want to be treated or would expect to be treated and last but not least, be human - so remember you are a human before you are a leader. Check these out on the podcast, it was great to hear all about them.
Stuart then told us about 2 examples of when leadership has gone well and these were when during the pandemic he worked in COVID ICU and the leadership shown by the team he joined during such a challenging time. Their direction, experience and ability were key to leading a team of strangers who had come from all over to staff the area. His second example was again about the pandemic but as a unionist and healthcare leader at that time. He called the pandemic a "chronic emergency" and I really loved that phrase as it is such a fitting juxtaposition to explain the pandemic.
Lastly, as Staurt's 1 leadership style, he told us about collective leadership. Give the podcast a listen and you can read more about this leadership style below.
Delve into Collective Leadership
This is a style of leadership that is said to replace the likes of top-down leadership. It is said to be a social movement and process as such. It is a style and approach about people coming together to achieve goals and overcome challenges collectively, often focusing on one another's expertise and experience. Each person brings something unique to a team so a collective leader within a collective team recognises this and utilises it to the benefit of all.
People in teams with a collective leader and therefore a collective approach, need to have trust in one another as well as transparency, accountability, effective communication as well as shared learning, but also shared power writes O'Neil and Brinkerhoof (2018).
Because collective leadership is about shared power and shared experience, it is said to lead to better outcomes and stable solutions as opposed to those that might happen when it is only one person or leader making choices and decisions.
In their 2014 publication, West et al list some of the key messages on the importance of this style of leadership, collective, for healthcare as follows:
Collective leadership means everyone taking responsibility for the success of the organisation as a whole – not just for their own jobs or area. This contrasts with traditional approaches focused on developing individual capability.
If leaders and managers create positive, supportive environments for staff, those staff then create caring, supportive environments for patients, delivering higher quality care.
Where there is a culture of collective leadership, all staff members are likely to intervene to solve problems, to ensure quality of care and to promote responsible, safe innovation.
Organisational performance does not rest simply on the number or quality of individual leaders. Research shows that where relationships between leaders are well developed, trusts will benefit from direction, alignment and commitment.
Vision and mission statements must be translated into clear, aligned, agreed and challenging objectives at all levels of the organisation, from the board to frontline teams and individuals.
Further reading on Collective Leadership
Websites:
Open access articles:
The Open University via Open Learn offer a free course on Collective Leadership, why not check it out here: Open Learn Collective Leadership Course
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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