The mission (this time…)
Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust were creating a leadership development programme as part of their Joy at Work people strategy. A clear need was building self-awareness in future leaders to show authenticity in their leadership and allow delegates to feel confident in engaging in performance conversations and feedback. This was launched with delegates on their Nursing Development Programme in May 2022.
The approach
Firstly, we co-created the design of the Leading with Strengths module within the programme, which included content on:
- Authentic leadership and the power of bringing yourself to the role
- Understanding how knowing and communicating your strengths can help develop an authentic leadership style
- How strengths can help within your context – in challenging times and in engagement with your teams.
From this, the Strengthscope360™ tool was selected as the best report, given that it allows delegates to understand their own strengths and get feedback on how visible and effective their highest-rated strengths are to stakeholders within their network. We then accredited a cohort of 12 practitioners to support the in-house delivery of the programme and to support delegates through the Strengthscope assessment process.
Each delegate was given the Strengthscope360™ assessment to complete and gather rater feedback for. As pre-work for the facilitated session, delegates were given access to our online video course on StrengthsPortal® to help them understand their report. Following the programme, they had access to two e-learning pathways to help them apply their strengths to conversations with their teams and how to deal with stress and build resilience.
The results
Following completion of the Strengthscope360™ report and facilitated session, feedback was collected from each cohort (approximately 12 people per cohort)
- 100% of attendees reported all sessions as very useful
- 100% of attendees reported overall ratings for the day based on content, balance, delivery and communication as
excellent.
The ongoing journey
We continue to develop the course within the nursing cohort, with the intention to roll this module out to other specialist departments in the Trust. Our partnership led to our application and subsequent success in applying for a lot in the Kent and Medway ICS EDI tender, allowing Strengthscope to be a supplier of choice within the NHS. We were invited to run a session to introduce strengths to the Trust HR Management team to build further advocacy across the Trust.
“I found Strengthscope extremely useful to help me identify areas I can enhance and perform well in at work. It was a huge confidence boost – particularly the anonymous colleague feedback and has helped me to feel more valued at work, and given me an insight into what my colleagues think about my contributions and how I work. Overall increasing my motivation and feeling valued in my team..” – Delegate testimonial
“Thank you for leading our strengths journey and enabling our transformation”
– Alexandra Bode-Tunji, Chief People Officer
