Leadership is not about titles, status, awards, pay, or power over others. Leaders are those who recognise the potential in people and ideas and develop that potential. A leader is anyone who wants to make a difference, steps up and chooses courage over comfort. Indeed, leaders lean into discomfort and difficult situations or conversations – they feel the fear and do it anyway. A leader knows they don’t know everything and listens with curiosity, empathy, humility, and interest, understanding that their role is to ask the right questions and draw the answers out of others. A leader helps to give voice to those who feel voiceless. Leadership is thus vital at all levels in social care.
In Japanese, there is a word gemba (現場, also spelt less commonly as genba), which means “the real place”, or the scene of the important action. TV reporters may describe themselves as “live from the gemba”. In business, gemba refers to the place where value is created. In manufacturing, for example, the gemba is the factory floor.
In social care, the gemba is the interaction between the people drawing on services and those supporting them. This is the scene of the most important action. The relationships which develop between those giving and receiving care are mutually beneficial and often transformational.
Most care workers are highly skilled at listening with empathy, observing and asking the right questions to ensure a person’s needs are understood and met and their potential is realised. They advocate for the people they support, leading other professionals, such as social workers, district nurses, GPs, pharmacists, and housing managers, to take appropriate action to ensure their health and well-being. Frequently, they also lead informal networks of family, friends, and neighbours to enable the people they support to live as well as possible. Care workers give voice to those who feel voiceless. Their work is often difficult and uncomfortable, but they lean in and do it anyway, quietly and with determination, and lives are improved. This is true leadership.
Japanese manufacturers have long encouraged the idea of doing a “gemba walk”, so people at more senior levels can see for themselves what happens on the factory floor, ask questions, and show respect. In social care, this could not be more important.
In high performing social care organisations, those at more senior levels instinctively understand that the answers lie with those in “the real place”, at the scene of the most important action. So, they listen to those receiving and giving care, ask questions with curiosity and humility, and commit to improving the lives of their staff and those they support, thereby amplifying the value of the work.
Research on what motivates care workers shows that if they feel their line managers care about them to the same extent that they care about the people they support, they will go to the ends of the earth and back.
Part of this care is ensuring that basic biological needs are met, which includes fair pay and terms and conditions of employment, so care workers can afford the necessities of life, including accommodation, food, and clothes. Like all people, though, care workers also have other needs. They need to feel safe, secure, loved, valued, respected, and connected with a sense of belonging. They need to know they have meaning and purpose and some form of control over their work and lives; that they can make decisions and contribute to improving the lives of others.
For my part, I will continue to use the platform my role provides to give voice to the voiceless, working collaboratively with all parties to ensure the needs of those giving and receiving care are effectively met.
