Unconscious bias and its effect on healthcare leadership

Unconscious bias and its effect on healthcare leadership If the health service is to survive it must take diversity seriously.

The need to build organisational cultures in which there is high quality, ever improving compassionate care focused on the needs of patients is now an indisputable and understandable refrain of health policy. But, experience has demonstrated time and again that achieving change takes considerable time, energy, passion and conviction.

Culture is about values but it is also made up of the countless interactions and exchanges between people every day. These interactions form the basis of relationships and within organisations relationships are the basis of culture. Culture is hard to pin down and while we can’t help but contribute to it, changing it is difficult. At the King’s Fund we have published a compelling evidence base in support of an approach to developing collective leadership as a way of changing culture. It invites a different way of thinking about leadership, where the responsibility for delivering high quality compassionate care resides within and across organisations, and relies heavily on how leaders build relationships. Continue reading... The Guardian