Clinical Leadership During Crises (PADM90024)

Responses to disasters and terror events require leadership, and many clinicians and health service managers anticipate taking on leadership positions or find themselves in leadership roles, without any formal education in leadership. This can have negative consequences for the leader, colleagues, patients and healthcare organisations. During such crises, leaders must be able to rapidly assess a complex situation, often with limited and fragmented information, while providing effective communication to colleagues, patients and healthcare organisations. The purpose of this subject is to provide clinical and health service leaders (and aspiring leaders) with knowledge of leadership practices during crisis management and the opportunity to implement this learning and acquire new skills. Subject content will be grounded in evidence-based knowledge produced by leadership scholars and practised by leaders in Disaster and Terror Medicine and Health Management.

Topics covered will include:

• Styles of effective clinical and health service leadership
• Leading successful and productive teams
• Conflict resolution and difficult conversations
• Emotional intelligence
• Ethical issues in clinical and health service leadership
• Coaching and developing others

Teaching/learning formats include:

• Interactive facilitator presentations
• Written case studies
• Group exercises
• Small team discussions of participant leadership challenges
• Participant presentations
• Guest speakers: senior leaders in Disaster and Terror Medicine and Health Management who will share their leadership challenges and solutions.

The informal exchange of insights and experiences among participants is a key aspect of learning.