What’s your job role?
I’m the head of Spiritual, Pastoral and Religious Care (SPARC) at NHS Wolverhampton and Walsall.
Questions
How has your approach to leadership changed or developed as a result of undertaking the MPA?
I think through the course, just a broader mindset in regards to approaches to leadership, styles of leadership and the different actual methods of leadership. For me, what it’s done is really cultivated the raw material that I feel I have inside regarding leadership and giving me a broader framework to apply the raw material to – it’s brought it all together really. I think that’s been really, really productive.
With the knowledge you’ve developed, what challenges do you think this will help to resolve in your role?
For me, in the role that I’m in now, it’s developing strategy, so it’s very much developing values-based strategy, which is really important. One of the things that I’ve really got from the course is that policy and procedures, protocol are all important, as long as people matter most. And for me it’s remaining focused, especially in the public sector, remaining focused and and cognizant of the needs of the people, I feel that’s been something that this course has really helped me to recognise.
How have you benefited from working with peers from other faiths on your course? And what have you learned from them that could be used in your own leadership role?
I think I’ve learnt about their different contexts, so they’ve got different structures and different bases, but they recognise the commonality and values, so that’s been a good thing. I think overall it’s that they come from different perspectives, different contexts and cultures. Culturally, leadership can look different, but also, it’s caused me to value the raw material of the lessons from my culture. And I think that understanding that we’re not necessarily needing to compare ourselves to one another, but we can share in the value of our respective cultures, share in the respective value of our faith traditions, and be informed by them to work not only individually but collaboratively and find new ways that we can actually build and lead together.
What advice would you give to anybody else considering taking the apprenticeship route of the MPA?
I would say, you know, go for it. I’d say it’s a journey. It’s going to require resilience. But I think if you’ve got a perspective that you want to either bring change or bring a fresh approach to leadership in your context, this is a course that will enable you to step back, refresh, but also reframe the way you think in order to take a fresh approach. You can do it; you don’t need to take time out from your actual work – you can do it real time and that’s why it’s so powerful for me.