Leadership in Social Work Practice and Later Life Care
This article illuminates the issue of poor leadership in social work practice
, which lack clear vision in professional social work and changing social care needs of the emerging ageing population. The exploration of the concerns would help to revolutionise the profession and its entire endeavour in the 21st Century and beyond. Visionary leadership would lead to what the author called "Just in Time Care Management Approach". The wisdom would coincide with the "Big Society ideology of power to the people, community involvements, and effective resource management at minimum costs.
Contemporary social work requires a strong leadership approach that is able to conceptualise the cross cultural enterprise and care interface between health and social care institutions. Leadership is always a relative process. To be effective and to communicate ideas as intended, a leader would always modify his behaviour to take into account the expectations of all the key stakeholders and interpersonal skills of those with who service users interact with.
There can be no specific rules of leadership which will work well in all situations owing to geo-political influences and other environmental factors. However, broad principles can be applied in the process of leadership and these should be inculcated in a manner that takes fully into account the challenges of demographic change and the aspirations of the service users. For leaders to function well; they may have to combine natural intelligence, practice based-knowledge and formal training opportunities to develop a flexible leadership style capable enough to lead subordinates.
Social work is now changing with time and challenges from users therefore, the profession has to keep pace with the characteristics of good leadership skills and styles in order to achieve results that are expected by the stakeholders.
Leadership in Social Work Practice and Later Life Care