The challenges of funding, training and cultural transformation are now felt globally. The need to learn and adapt from suitable models of ambulance service delivery have never been greater. Fresh insights and management understanding of the changing role of the emergency services is needed against the backdrop of massive cuts in funding budgets around the world and the changing context of blue light services. As an expert in the field of emergency management and one of the leaders in the field, I offer critical insights into the theory and practice of strategic and operational management of and the leadership needs for individual emergency services.
Strong leadership and building strategic capabilities is seen as one of the key factor for organisational success. It is estimated that a majority of the projects fail due to poor leadership. A ‘heroic’ style of leadership accompanied by a command and control culture is unlikely to bring desired results. Traditional approaches to the study of organisational leadership have relied on measuring or identifying leadership styles or attributes across ranks or senior leaders. The role, contribution or the dynamic interplay between the leaders at different levels within the organisations has not been fully explored. I have investigated ways to release the latent talent and drive of a critical mass of employees, and creating strong distributed leadership within organisation. This has involved identifying the current and alternate leadership profiles at various levels in organisations including facilitators and barriers to development of strategic leadership capacity.
Workforce resilience and staff retention/ recruitment are becoming global organisational problems. Sickness absence has huge cost implications for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for staff retention and productivity. Stress is the ‘Health Epidemic of the 21st Century’ according to the World Health Organisation and is estimated to be costing American businesses alone $300 billion a year. In the UK for the last five years, work-related stress, depression or anxiety has been the single most reported complaint to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). These are not only moral issues relating to staff health and wellbeing, but also of major organisational significance in terms of performance, employee engagement, cost of ill health and potential litigation claims. There is growing evidence on the health impacts leading to problems of mental health, stress, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other illness of workers in different settings. My work involves understanding organisational and culture drivers for sickness absence and exploring mechanisms to generate and promote workforce resilience measures.
The effectiveness of a wide variety of organisations has been linked to strong leadership and culture of the organisations, since structural changes have come to be seen as inadequate on their own as a means for reform. Changing organisational culture is becoming a familiar prescription for reform across organisations globally while adapting to market conditions, changes in the customer expectations and increasing competitive pressures. However, attempts to manage culture are frequently characterised by perverse consequences that can impede or even prevent the desired culture change. I have helped the ambulance services in developing an understanding of the current cultural values in their organisations and strategies to support change and innovation. I have also helped in identifying key staff and stakeholders in bringing and managing change while recognising the negative consequences of culture change management including how to manage emotional response to the culture change process.
As an experienced researcher, an academic journal editor and widely published scholar, I am involved in building research capability in my organisation. This is equally relevant to university and college academics/researchers (for publishing in top journals, writing research papers, etc.) and researchers working in health, public and private sector settings (to design project, research ethics, methodological considerations). I am involved with exploring funding ideas for organising workshops/seminars, attracting top scholars and key note speakers. I have experience of planning and organising specialist panels over the last 10 years at major international management conferences.