Abstract
Social workers have the capacity and skills to assume leadership positions in social service agencies. Social work educational institutions must continue to prepare and encourage graduates to seek leadership roles in social service agencies. Social work curriculum and post-graduate professional development are significant avenues to ensure social workers will be excellent choices as organizational leaders and administrators. This article offers a review of the literature to identify gaps and ways to cultivate leaders through intentional recruitment and continuous training of social workers in human service leadership and administration.
Highlights
Social workers have the capacity and skills to assume leadership positions in social service agencies
Agencies need to address the issue of succession planning, and schools of social work need to prepare and equip graduates to take on leadership roles
Social workers serve in leadership roles across different environments, but not in sufficient numbers, and not always as the first choice for leadership positions
Summary
While social work leadership is not a new area, it remains an emerging research topic, as there is a large gap in the literature in terms of evidence-based practices. Themes identified as contributing to their leadership role included a commitment to the NASW Code of Ethics, a systemic perspective, altruism, and concern about the public image of the profession These themes represent the strengths of social work. The emphasis in social work on multidimensional systems and the commitment to a distinctive code of ethics offers a unique framework for training future leaders and administrators of social service agencies (Nesoff, 2007). Day (2011) observed that leaders of medical centers rated social work leaders higher on measures of management skills than the social workers rated themselves While respected by their medically trained colleagues for their managerial competencies, it is clear that social work leaders may experience self-doubt and personal insecurities about their ability to lead, manage, and administer a social service agency. Collins-Camargo, Chuang, McBeath, and Bunger (2014) found private child welfare agencies were better equipped than public agencies to meet the needs of their clientele due to excellent management performance and strategies
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