REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON LEADERSHIP IN MENTAL HEALTH

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY

This assignment will look at the changing practice at my place of work, in terms of management and analyse the process underpinned by the Gibbs model of reflection.  

Using this structured model, I will analyse my skills in leading change in practice.  

This will include its immediate impact on my knowledge, skills and attitude and how this may affect my future practice.

The place of work concerned is a mental health rehabilitation unit for adults ranging from 18-65years.  The unit opened in the summer of 2007 and had its first resident not long after.

One of the key tasks for management and in particular myself, was to establish a daily checklist of duties aswell as observation, and intervention write-ups for staff.  This list was devised by myself but was not appreciated by the staff and I found it difficult to enforce this.  The reason for this was that the staff felt it was a punitive measure given that there was only one resident.

The agenda on the weekly staff meetings often reverted to talking about the “chore” list and I felt this was having a negative effect on the service being provided and also the general moral of the place. As part of the management, I had to lead change in such a way as to ‘unfreeze, move and refreeze’ processes according to Lewin (1951) so that it facilitates progression.  I had to understand the restraining forces and the driving forces (Kemp 1984) and produce a desired change.

According to Lewin, the process of planned change comprises a three step process: unfreezing, moving and refreezing. The three processes came from ‘field theory’ in which change occurs as a result of forces in the field. Positive forces are called driving forces and negative forces are called restraining forces (figure 1). Driving forces such as good motivation will move towards the desired goal whilst restraining forces such as low motivation, low pay scales are likely to impede that achievement.

                                  Restraining Forces                                 Restraining Forces

Present Equilibrium                                 Moving                         

  (status quo)        ____________________                              ___________________  (refreezing)                                         (unfreezing)        

                                   Driving Forces                                          Driving Forces

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                                Lewin’s (1951) Force Field Model                                  Figure 1

Using Gibbs model, I tried to analyse my feelings of rejection by the rest of the team, feelings of anger by not being able to change the situation because the support workers had created a clique whereby it was ‘us’ and ‘them.’ They felt that a tick box approach to supervision was not needed and that the only thing needed was a daily written log of the progress of the resident.  What was good about this experience was that the workers were being introspective ...

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