Suzanne Kerruish

Forging of networks

The strong personal networks and peer mentoring that developed during the Executive Leadership and Management Programme (ELMP) was a treasured bonus to come out of the two years of study, declares Suzanne Kerruish, service manager of adult community services mental health at Counties Manukau District Health Board.     

“You can get very isolated without realising it and it is heartening to discuss things with someone from another part of the country who is going through exactly the same process or issue. So we support each other through projects and make sure we’re not reinventing the wheel.”

About 20 of approximately 75 participants continued into the second year to the Advanced Executive and Leadership Programme (AELMP)  to forge a network that is still active two years later. “After spending a year together in workshops and training sessions, we had developed honest and challenging communication amongst each other and would encourage and challenge each other to think about our role as leader and manager in a slightly different way to how we were personally viewing it ourselves.”

For Suzanne the challenge was to step outside her comfort zone more, and to have confidence around initiating the difficult conversations required at times as manager.

Suzanne had only been in her team leader role with the new Manukau Community Mental Health team for six months when she started the programme. “I had worked in a variety of jobs within the DHB, including clinical roles, project management and quality improvement, but I’d never led anything of this significance. There are real challenges in bringing together a large multidisciplinary group in a busy and changing environment where there is a lot of uncertainty and you’re feeling quite junior as a manager.” Therefore a programme in mental health leadership that was inclusive of all sectors of mental health and incorporated a postgraduate certificate in management studies seemed a great investment.

Programme

The content of the programme was excellent, says Suzanne; both the workshops and the Waikato University papers. “The programme managed to get a balance that was not overly academic but provided evidence-based information and relevant text books,” says Suzanne, adding she still has some of the reference material and text books sitting in her office to refer to when she needs. “They really did choose very practical resources.”

Projects related to the day-day work so participants could use real life situations as part of their learning and incorporate those into their assignments. There was a lot of flexibility around choice of topics within themes, which meant you could choose projects and submit assignments that mirrored issues and situations as you came across them in your managerial role, explains Suzanne. “Often we would find common themes within our learning group about the challenges within each of our workplaces and it was such a valuable opportunity to be talking through those issues as a group.”

Conflict resolution, for example, was something Suzanne had limited experience of and was not overly comfortable with. Yet it was an essential skill required when building up a team from zero to 40 people, as she was doing. Readings and discussions about conflict resolution during training days helped her with the implementation of various approaches with her team.

Strategic thinking was another interesting subject, says Suzanne. She has learned to step back, look at the bigger picture and develop a vision inclusive of the whole team. “It has made a big difference; I’m not continually in fire fighting mode any more.”

Another eye opener for Suzanne was learning discussion about national strategy, policy and legislation, areas she’d never previously considered to be relevant to her role. But over the course she saw how Ministry guidelines and policies impacted on the shop floor and the importance of being able to communicate about that in a relevant way to her team. “It gave me the larger framework in which to understand the decisions and directions of the mental health and addiction services. I work in an environment where interagency linkages are expected. Indeed it is a core part of some of the work that we do so it is absolutely important that I understand the wider context, especially in the current economic climate.”

Benefits

She believes she now has the ability to step back and see the bigger picture of linkages, strategic alliances and the importance of data. She also recognises how informed decision making processes and future planning encourage proactive, rather than reactive, management. Organisation wide, she feels more confident about her approach as manager which means she is more capable of implementing service wide directives and initiatives.

“Doing a leadership course helps you to identify and develop your leadership skills and learn to use them in the right way, so you get insight into the areas where you do well and the areas that are lying dormant,” declares Suzanne. “But is also teaches you how to step back and prioritise and plan. I think one of the benefits of this programme was the wide range of areas it covered, so we didn’t just learn about finance, or strategic alliance but also got insight into ourselves as well.”

Personal

Since she finished the programme, Suzanne feels that she has become a better communicator and decision maker for her team and is better able to explain and share information with staff; “hopefully making it meaningful to them”. “I also try not to focus just on the day-day operational needs, but try and take a longer term view of the strategic direction of the team.”

She also developed insights into ways to be able to influence change within her own mental health service and now feels much more comfortable about asking for extra resources when she needs them.

The programme has helped me grow in my skills for the role and challenged me to keep doing that, explains Suzanne. “I think I could have become quite a passive manager but the programme helped me become proactive, more aware and more astute.”                 

Page last updated: 10 February 2010