17/04/2025
Welcome to workshop at Wardha on 21st April.
Dear friends, Let’s talk about leadership.
Leadership is one of the most valued and least understood phenomena. Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Leadership is all around us.
Effective leadership can influence our outcomes in following three broad areas;
1. Health & Medical Leadership: “ALL” perspective; My Nation, My people
2. Organizational Leadership: “WE” perspective; My Fellow Members
3. Self-Leadership: “ME” perspective; My Development
1. Health & Medical Leadership: “ALL” perspective
More and more clinicians are being engaged in management process and resources allocation. This is a leadership function which can be developed.
a. Health sector has grown exponentially. Complexity of treatment approaches and specialization has resulted in multidisciplinary teams. These teams challenge hierarchy. There is now a complex system of public and private healthcare providers. With plethora of regulators around we need skilled managers and good leaders.
b. The nature of health requires leader and managers at multiple levels. Small units, multidisciplinary teams, departments, networks and system all need equally good leaders. World class leadership talent and leadership development is expected at every level in the health system to ensure high quality care and value for money.
c. The tension between the desire for a clear chain of command and the professional autonomy of clinicians is usually resolved through consensus. Consensus requires that the leader develop skills in persuasion, negotiation and influence to achieve his goal.
d. Public scrutiny and accountability are inseparable parts of the health system. Leaders can’t run away from it. They need to be resilient. They need to follow transparency, equity and inclusion in whatever they do.
2. Organizational Leadership: “WE” Perspective
IPS as an association has multiple leadership roles to play.
a. Continuously innovating and creatively implementing safety, development and welfare of our fellow members. It has to encourage appropriate level of self-regulation and ethics.
b. Promoting education and research through CMEs & Conferences. It is an opportunity for elevating planning, organizing and other leadership skills of our young leaders.
c. Motivating leaders to accept role as leader-coach to their respective teams. This has potential to remarkably transforms the teams and organization.
d. Ensuring leadership bench strength by mentorship and coaching to prospective leaders.
3. Self-Leadership: “ME” Perspective:
Leadership training leads to development of few core competencies. It progresses through stages of learning, self-assessment, application and reflection. Basic competencies are
a. Self-Awareness
b. Growth Mindset
c. Confidence Building
d. Active Listening
e. Result Focus
f. Influence Without Authority
IPS intends to increase awareness about benefits of leadership attitudes and skills in both personal and professional life. We want to highlight, how as health professionals, leadership communication can help us reach the unreached.
Friends, we live in a world of rapid and constant change. Any change, can occasionally be, very disruptive. As, there is uncertainty everywhere, as professions are getting complex, as information is getting vast and dispersed, the new world needs nimbleness. There is a sudden boom, in number of new entrants. Institutional or Government support remains miniscule. Ever-changing regulatory frameworks, warrant quick and correct decision making.
Today’s reality may be described with an acronym V.U.C.A., which stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. It calls for a different paradigm of leadership, that looks at people, more as possibilities rather than resources. This requires leaders who can help their team find purpose in the work they do, leaders who can effectively communicate with their teams and leaders, who can inspire them by sharing with them their own personal stories and leadership journeys. We need leaders who have a clear purpose, leaders who are agile as well as adaptive, leaders who are responsive as well as collaborative and most importantly, we need leaders who are self-aware.
Post COVID, most professionals and organizations have become more innovative. They have adapted by setting-up remote-work arrangements. This approach led them in a new direction, which is in perfect alignment with the new reality. We should congratulate them. They succeeded in-spite of big odds. However, at the helm of all these wins, there was always a leader who steered people through choppy waters, who propelled them in the right direction. Leader brings the best out of the people. Leader supports and coaches them. The leader is the one who transforms them, from those affected, to those who will be identified in future as powerful change agents.
A good leader, therefore is also an excellent coach. In-fact you can’t be a leader unless you are a great coach. Leadership is a tremendous responsibility. It’s also an opportunity, to nurture the potential of another person. A leader-coach does not direct, he guides. He focuses on exploring possibilities, collectively with the team. A leader is not interested in the answer. He is more interested in the person, who raised the question. He is interested, in the source of the question. He encourages people, to think and voice their opinions. The reality demands that leaders do more to enable members, it demands to help them find their own path and purpose. Post pandemic, throughout the world, coaching has become a new normal. Although organizations may still need external coaches, the new world requires more leaders as coaches, leaders who not only lead from front, but can also build a culture of unity and collaboration. It will lead to healthy concord. Leadership Coaching has a great potential to build channels of communication within teams. It can develop them to adapt to this everchanging environment, to manage new challenges as they come.
Traditionally, organizations are being run, on the principle of hierarchical management. It’s clearly outdated now. Many organizations are still stuck, in the command-and-control style. Micro-managing is rampant, which is not going to help in long run. This may decrease member engagement, and at the best, result “tokenism”. To add, it is not going to reduce, stress in the executive team. More and more professionals, are being pushed into management and leadership roles. They are excellent clinicians, but unfortunately, rarely get any opportunity, to train themselves in leadership skills.
We have to accept the newer reality. Welfare of all members, including executive teams, is the prime responsibility, of any organization. IPS as an association of people, calls for pro-member style of leadership, a leadership which departs from being prescriptive to collaborative. Organizations are advised to shift from having all the answers, they need to ask the right questions, to get right answers, thereby giving more voice to each member.
Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. It is not about controlling; it is about empowering. Leadership is helping people find their purpose, it is setting them on path to realizing their potential. People need to be problem-solvers, they need not be mere task-doers. To encourage innovation and creativity in any organization, we need to create the right environment, we need to give our teams the ability to experiment, and to experiment without any fear of failure or reprimand. If an organization has to scale, it needs a whole team of leaders, and not just few people at the top. We have to support people, without instructing them. We ought to allow them to fail, so that they can learn from it. We ought to help them to be resilient in the face of any adversity.
It’s really up to us, the seniors, to harness the potential of our young members. It’s up to us to provide them with feedback at regular junctures. Our members, are already leaders in their own right. They already lead a team of medics in their clinic or hospitals. Withstanding multiple psychosocial constraints, they manage to achieve emotional recovery of patients. Many amongst us are regularly invited to conduct health and wellness programs in community, schools and industry. I am sure, this initiative to coach fellow members and leaders, can transform their ability into capability, to unleash change. It may unleash innovation, sparkle their creativity, and may invent unique career ladders for them. Let’s envision limitless possibilities for ourselves, and the organization in the long term.
During the journey of this task, the committee members will interact with you. They may briefly touch upon leadership theory, but our focus will be on simple actions, a leader can take, to foster a culture that enables and elevates others.
Dear friends, your ideas, suggestions and contributions are most welcome.
Let’s Lead On, Lead Far & Lead Boldly.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Deepak S. Rathod
Co-Chair IPS Rehabilitation Psychiatry Section 2025-26
Chairperson IPSWZB Leadership Development 2024-25
Chairperson IAPP Leadership Development 2024-25
Chairperson IPS TF Leadership Development 2023-25
President, IPS Western Zonal Branch 2019-20
Psychiatrist & Corporate Trainer,
Sahyadri Neurosciences, Institute of Mental Health,
Birla College Road, Kalyan, Mumbai. Phone: 9324765206
Email: [email protected]
