Lesson 3: Leading in the Current Health Environment (3/2) -- Leading Change in Public Health

Lesson 3: Leading in the Current Health Environment Learning Objectives - To understand key aspects of crisis leadership and analyze how these characteristics are understood and enacted in the current health environment. - To understand how to manage in a complex health environment. - To reflect on the tasks and responses that public health leaders have had to engage during the pandemic. Overview We are in a challenging time for public health and leadership in relation to COVID-19. This has spurred on numerous discussions about effective leadership styles in times of crisis and extreme organizational complexity. To this end, I have curated a number of articles that link to crisis leadership in public health emergencies (Deitchman, 2013; Halverson et al., 2021) and the another reading that focuses on required technical, interpersonal, conceptual and emotional intelligence skills required to be effective (Htway & Casteel, 2015). I have also provided links to other very current readings on leadership during COVID-19. This is definitely an important and emerging topic of interest and leadership responses and styles will be analyzed for years to come as we emerge from the pandemic and move in to a period of recovery. Understanding leadership styles generally, leadership during a pandemic and now thinking about what is required of public health leaders as they support community to recover will be an interesting area to follow and think about in any public health role. When reading these articles, I hope you are able to glean essential aspects of leadership in times of crisis as well as system thinking, complexity science/theory (from the video) and develop an understanding of how some leaders have managed to make changes that align to current and future changes that will occur in the health environment. With each reading I have also linked in a news article that aligns with this article to highlight the real world and current context of the topic in relation to leadership. Video “How to lead in a crisis”, by Amy C. Edmondson. TED: The Way We Work. Summary Dr. Amy Edmondson is one of the most well renown scholars in the area of organizational theory with a specific focus on psychology safety. Her work stems from her early project in a health care organizations where she she found notice that when individuals felt more psychological safe in their teams and environments they were more trusting of teams, leadership and were able to perform their jobs to a greater extent. This can also be extended to the notice of leadership during a crisis which she has outlined in this video. In the video it is outlined that during upheaval people crave security which means that often times leadership will focus on behaviors that exhibit strength, confidence and constancy. However, what is really needed is for leaders to be transparent and humble and admit when they do not know something. This is when people feel more psychologically safe. Dr. Edmondson also outlined that