Care management


Leadership – be careful it does not kill you


In a personal and emotive piece, Peter Bewert, managing director of care and organisational development group Meaningful Care Matters, explores what it means to be an effective leader in the social care sector


So, we got you to read the first sentence. I write this after having yet another heart- wrenching discussion with a well-known leader in the sector who has impacted the lives of millions, and her words were: “Leadership, it’s killing me”. I understood this from the root of its distress to the aching despair that comes with it. I knew how it felt, what it sounded like, what it looked like, I knew, because I have lived it myself. There is a plethora of peer-validated


research that is highly respected on this topic, not so much suicidal ideations, and impacts, although these are becoming more common.1,2


Others are more


colloquial and lack evidence-based research as their primary motivation for their literary works.3 What does this say? There is also a


growing amount of anecdotal evidence on social media of leaders who are exhausted and broken. There is a very real issue when we consider leadership and its impacts on our mental wellness and without direct disruption of this pathway, it will become a killer of significant proportion.


A tough gig Leadership is a tough gig! It is not for the faint of heart and requires a level of resilience that is beyond anything you could imagine. Leadership, when it is not


supported for the leader to succeed, is like a constant vortex spinning around you, with debris that requires your every attention. It keeps you awake at night, working


16-hour days and perpetually glued to an electronic device that contains the key to every cloud-related app for you to access the things you need to do your job. Sound familiar? Well, for some this is what leadership can be like. Certainly, it is tough. Many people


hold an oversimplified idea about what leadership means. Some think it is just a matter of guiding others to complete a task. Others confuse it with motivation. In truth, leadership is a complex blend of


A study of 200 industry leaders found that 100 per cent of leaders experienced a level of ill-being at some point in their lived experience in a role of leadership


November 2021 • www.thecarehomeenvironment.com


competencies and capabilities. For others sadly, it can be a matter of life or death. One recent morning as I sat in church,


I listened to the preacher recount her own journey of growth and I was struck by the following. “In days of the past, status in leaders was obtained in the ability to support you and your team to achieve by doing far less than we do today. Today we have created a status of the more we do and the busier we become that this has become our alleged achievement of achieving leadership status”.4 Far too many people’s experience


of leadership is not as it should be. A career in health and social care is rewarding, impactful and the best decision I have made personally and as a health professional. The last two decades have truly


developed me as a person and taken me through management and into a leadership role where my experiences generally have shaped me to be the best version I could be. Little did I know, the most defining moment of my professional career, my leadership ability, and my life


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