A day in London at the University yesterday, essay discussions about change, leadership, strategy, organisational culture etc. It is good to get time out of work to get together with the group (and also the cohort ahead of us on this occasion) to discuss these issues. I also found the time to go to the library and get a few books, mindful that I had to take them on the tube and train, I only picked up a few. Setting aside time to actually read, make notes and then of course write the assignment is a little more tricky, and something we all seem to be struggling with. 3 of the group work in the NHS, and all have busy demanding jobs, I for one struggle to have my brain sufficiently active by the time I have driven home, cooked dinner, loaded the dishwasher etc. I guess that I should cut down on the blogging, but a girl has to have some fun!

Having said that, I am finding the reading about change management, the manager / leader debate and the skills you need to make change successful really interesting. I am increasingly wondering if some of our problems in the NHS might be due to the selection of managers, the fact that we just assume people can lead and manage others, and the fact we expect all managers to just be ‘leaders’ just by telling them they are leading on something. I also think that the skills we are looking for now, in a time of flux might be different from those we needed even 2 years ago when things were relatively calm. Leadership and management development is our key priority for this year, so maybe we are on the right lines, I wonder though if we shouldn’t have been doing that some time ago.

So to the weekend, teen son is off to Highbury to see Arsenal play today, and is doing this with his friend rather than his granddad, his independence is both great to see and scary, but I know I have to let him go off and explore the world. It is now the Easter holidays for him, though he has 3 pieces of GCSE coursework to complete and some revision to begin for his GCSE science exam. My brother and his family (who were meant to come over on Thursday but didn’t) will be visiting for dinner, and apparently there is to be some action in the garden by hubby! Tomorrow though should be a quite one, and I am going to be sitting with my books for at least some of it; only 5 weeks to the deadline for my assignment.

As a bit of a post script, part of one of my posts on this blog appeared in the Guardian this week! Sadly I have only seen it online rather than in print, but it filled me with a mixture of elation that my words should have appeared and trepidation that I need to be really careful about what I write. Having said that, my posts are pretty guarded when it comes to work already which is probably why I struggle at times to think of good stuff to put here.

part time post grad leadership
Change Management
Arsenal