Managers are not Leaders

The difference between the two:

• Managers administer; leaders innovate.
• Managers ask how and when; leaders ask what and why.
• Managers focus on systems; leaders focus on people.
• Managers do things right; leaders do the right things.
• Managers maintain; leaders develop.
• Managers rely on control; leaders inspire trust.
• Managers have short-term perspective; leaders have long-term perspective.
• Managers accept the status-quo; leaders challenge the status-quo.
• Managers have an eye on the bottom line; leaders have an eye on the horizon.
• Managers imitate; leaders originate.
• Managers emulate the classic good soldier; leaders are their own person.
• Managers copy; leaders show originality.

This dichotomy was modified from the one created by Warren Bennis (Bennis, Warren and Dan Goldsmith. Learning to Lead. Massachusetts: Persus Book, 1997) between managers and leaders.

The NHS is in a rut.

Its vision and direction (or Leadership) comes from discredited, incompetent politicians who have no clue about health. The orders are then sent down for the NHS managers to execute.

NHS managers are by no means the cream of the management crop to put it simply.

Strangely enough I get the feeling that some NHS managers and NHS employers realise two truths:
1) They are out of their depths
2) That leadership should come from the medical profession.

HOWEVER to fix this situation The NHS, in its current Management heavy version, is going to try and 'manage' medical leadership (in a similar way to how it 'Modernised Medical Leadership').

So it has created: NHS Leadership Qualities Framework PDF .

The framework makes for some interesting reading. Like most 'frameworks' you can tell it was created by a manager/admindroid. So something not 100% tangible (like what makes a good leader/doctor etc) gets converted into a Tick Box Exercise.

Future leaders please be aware that the NHS will require you to
Complete the NHS Leadership Module,
Sign up to the NHS Leadership Style
Emerge from the NHS Leadership Mould
Swear Allegiance to the NHS Leadership.

These guys will surely save the NHS.

To help save the NHS from ruin it would better to get rid of the managers than to create 'managed' leaders.

'Cure the NHS with far fewer managers'

Super manager Gerry Robinson thinks that we have too many mangers leaching off of the NHS. He highlights the following facts:

There are 39,900 are managers in the NHS.

There are 34,900 Consultant doctors in the NHS

That means there are now 5,000 more people employed to shuffle papers and carry clipboards than there are treating sick patients.

Not only that but the costs of these Jobsworths is increasing year on year while front line health care staff cut.

'Incomes Data Services show that chief executives of NHS foundation trusts now earn an average of £158,000. Across the board at executive level within the NHS, salaries rose by 7.6 per cent in foundation trusts, and 5.7 per cent in non-foundation bodies.'

Super manager Gerry Robinson

Welcome to the National Manager Trough Service.

The Target Culture. Are you a victim?

"Pressure, pressure, pressure" to meet the four-hour A&E waiting time target.

'Several doctors recounted occasions where managers had asked them to leave seriously ill patients to treat minor ailments so the target could be met.

One gave an example of being asked to leave a heart attack patient being given life-saving treatment.

Nurses reported leaving meetings in tears after being told their jobs were at risk after breaching the target.

And the watchdog concluded patients were sometimes "dumped" into wards near A&E with little nursing care so the target could be met. This led to delays in things such as x-rays as well as putting patients at risk'

Does this remind you of somewhere you work?

The bottom line: YOUR PATIENTS COME FIRST.

Professionals please ignore the mangers.

The public are finally waking up to their schemes.

Managers only care about the numbers.

£15,000 a month for suspended manager

The suspended boss of Stafford Hospital, where hundreds died on casualty wards, will receive £15,000 a month while an inquiry investigates his conduct.

Healthcare workers beware

The number one priority for every NHS organisation must be on providing excellent care for patients.

Organisational changes, financial pressures and government-imposed targets must not distract management away from this.

If you are being harassed by some Clipboard Queen or Management Bozo remember the sad story of Mid Staffordshire...

And the universal condemnation for their success and how they achieved this.

'There is something very wrong when trusts are achieving foundation status by putting the health of their budgets over the care of their patients.' Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing

You have been warned.

Its official: Successful managers are disastrous too.

Mid Staffordshire Hospital was successful.

It met most of its targets.

It achieved Foundation Status.

RECEPTIONISTS ASSESSED PATIENTS!

Patients died and the 'successful' hospital 'caused deaths'.

I bull**** for a living

'An NHS manager believed to earn more than £50,000 a year admitted on an internet posting that she earnt her money "bull*****ing" for a living.'

We always knew that NHS managers are a waste of space and that all they do is sweet FA.

Now in an exclusive one manager comes clean.

They are a drain on resources. They are an obstacle to clinical care. They are a drain on our taxes.

At a time when the economy is in a downward spiral and countless are being denied cancer treatments it is time to save on worthless managers and direct the money to NHS patients and front line staff.

As for Caroline Davis, assistant director of strategic partnerships at Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust... no doubt she will leave this post only to resurface in some other guise at some other hospital trust. Wasting our taxes 'bull****ing'.