Collective leadership as a management arrangement of integrated health and social care

Abstract

Introduction: Integrated health and social care based on formal collaboration and cooperation is essential for persons with complex needs. Increasingly complex health care routines however challenges traditional forms of leadership and often require innovative forms of leadership. Collective leadership is one form reported to benefit collaboration and joint management between sectors and providers. Aim: to better understand the functions of collective leadership and its potentials for integrated health and social care. Objectives: to explore formal leaders perceptions of helping and hindering conditions to collaborate in an integrated health and social care organisation followed by a synthesis on implications for collective leadership in complex organisations. Methods: a qualitative, explorative study research design. Study setting: a psychiatric centre with long traditions of providing integrated health and social care, characterised by co-location of interprofessional teams managed by collective leaders and a shared top management. Participants: four pairs of first line managers performing collective leadership were interviewed. Data analysis: The initial and descriptive phase of the analysis addressed the role and process of collective leadership and its prerequisites. To advance the understanding of collective leadership in complex organisations the next phase was informed by complexity theory and the theory of leadership in complex organisations. Five key dimension of complex leadership served as a framework in the final analysis. 15th International Conference on Integrated Care, Edinburgh, UK, March 25-27, 2015 1 International Journal of Integrated Care – Volume 15, 27 May – URN:NBN:NL:UI:10-1-117016 – http://www.ijic.org/ Results: Our findings provide valuable insight into advantages as well as challenges when using collective leadership as a management form in integrated care. The advantages and challenges concern both formal management tasks and tasks associated with leadership. Furthermore our findings provide insight into contextual aspects and aspects related to leader qualities and skills important to consider when implementing collective leadership as a management form in integrated care. Conclusion: Based on our findings we can provide pros and cons of collective leadership as a management form in integrated care. Moreover we can highlight some preconditions which could facilitate and hinder the collective form of management.