Proactive Management in Social Work Practice

Sharon Lambley

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781844452897
• eBook ISBN: 9781844455836
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

Leadership and management appointments are often made on the basis of an exemplary performance record in a non-managerial role with the implicit assumption that this standard will be transferred into the new role. However, the role of manager and leader in social care is very challenging and some managers struggle to acquire the level of performance they had achieved in their previous role. This book will introduce the values and principles that underpin good leadership and management practice to anyone working in social work and social care services.

Chapter 1

Why good people
management and
leadership matters

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GENERAL SOCIAL CARE COUNCIL POST-QUALIFYING REQUIREMENTS

This chapter will assist in the meeting of the following General Social Care Council (GSCC) post-qualifying requirements.

Higher specialist generic requirements

Use independent critical judgement to systematically develop own practice and that of others in the context of the General Social Care Council (GSCC) codes of practice, national and international codes of professional ethics and the principles of diversity, equality and social inclusion in a wide range of situations including those associated with inter-agency and inter-professional work.

Advanced social work generic requirements

Use independent critical judgement to take a lead role in systematically developing own practice and that of others in the context of GSCC codes of practice, national and international codes of professional ethics, the principles of diversity, equality and social inclusion in a wide range of situations including those associated with inter-agency and inter-professional work.

Specialist requirements

Requirement 1.1 – Embeds the following principles.

• Develop and maintain awareness and keep in touch with service users and staff.
• Provide an environment and time in which to develop reflective practice, professional skills and the ability to make judgements in complex situations.

Requirement 1.2 – Outcome focused; learning outcomes must affect service outcomes.

Requirement 1.3 – Manage self and personal skills.

Requirement 2 – Develop and assess effective and competent leadership and management practice in applying relevant knowledge and skills to leadership and management practice in specific service context.

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Introduction

Social work has not traditionally placed the professional development of managers and leaders very high on its agenda, but this situation is changing. The General Social Care Council Post-Qualifying Award framework has developed a pathway for managers and leaders. This is a welcome because social work has long existed without a professional development route for its managers. Social work managers need to be appropriately trained and competent for the highly complex work they do. In this chapter we look at why good management and leadership matters in social work. We begin by asking, what makes a good social work manager?

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ACTIVITY

Draw up a list of what you think makes up a good manager.

Ask service users to produce a separate list and bring together the common themes to make one complete list.

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Service Users told Skills for Care that good managers:

• treat us with respect, support our choices;
• enable us to access and/or manage the services we need;
• understand what dignity means in very practical terms and make it a reality;
• show the way, keep people on board and together;
• listen to us, make change happen and get results through the best use of people, money and other resources.

(Skills for Care, 2008)

How does your ‘complete’ list compare with this one from Skills for Care?

It is generally agreed that a good manager:

• can organise and get things done;
• can lead and inspire staff to follow;
• is knowledgeable about the business, i.e. understand the complexity involved in working with vulnerable and sometimes ‘reluctant’ service users who may harm themselves or others;
• supports and encourages staff to access development opportunities and is themselves an active learner;
• is good at providing feedback on performance;
• can meet the expectations of stakeholders (service users, staff, carers, local authority officials, etc.).

Good management practice is known to be an integrating activity and it is increasingly seen as critical for success. Managers, working with professionals, have become the link between policy and services users and are responsible, through meeting targets, for the delivery of intended policy outcomes.

However, to deliver against targets good managers are required to be good leaders, which draws from a broader knowledge base and a different set of skills.

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ACTIVITY

Make a list of what you think makes a good leader. Again, ask service users for a list of what they think makes a good leader and compare with your own, looking for a ‘complete list’. What can you conclude from this exercise?

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Leadership theories suggest that some people are born with leadership ‘traits’ (e.g., intelligence, integrity, sociability, etc.) and that this makes them natural leaders, whilst other theories suggest that leadership behaviours can be taught and leadership skills developed. What do you think? Most people think that that good leadership may well be a combination of particular traits as well as learnt behaviours.

Whether you are a born leader or made a leader, your leadership style should be appropriate to the particular context within which you work. In social work this is particularly relevant, as managers may need to adopt a leadership style that is appropriate to leading a team through transformational change over a limited period of time, and this may be different to leading a group of service users and other stakeholders through a process of service re-design. Very direct approaches may be needed in the former case, and a more facilitative leadership approach in the latter.

The post-bureaucratic organisation requires a new kind of alliance between leaders and the led. Today’s organisations are evolving into federations, networks, clusters, cross-functional teams, temporary systems, ad-hoc task forces, lattices, modules, matrices – almost anything but pyramids with their obsolete top down leadership. The new leader will encourage healthy dissent and value those followers courageous enough to say no. it will go to the leader who exults in cultural differences and knows that diversity is the best hope for the long-term survival and success. This does not mark the end of leadership. Rather the need for a new, far more subtle and indirect form of influence for leaders to be effective.

(Bennis, 2001 in Mullins, 2005, p315)

In reality social work managers are working in very messy environments with real people, and increasingly within multi-agency settings, where government policies may be wide ranging or even competing with one another. Good social work management and leadership therefore has to be adaptable and relevant to the context within which it is practised, and this may involve working in partnership with many stakeholders, which adds an additional level of complexity to the manager/leader role. The practice of management and leadership therefore does overlap and the term is often used interchangeably and reflects an expectation that social work managers will be both. This is reflected within the management and leadership competences for social work managers.

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ACTIVITY

Summarise in one sentence what is it that you think good leaders do. You may want to ask your staff and service users to help you construct your sentence. Here is an example to help you think about this: Good leaders set the right tone, inspire staff to follow and enable staff to deliver high-quality services to service users.

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Why is the management of people so
important in social work?

The level of complexity involved in the management role in social work is high, and the work is demanding. Social work managers can be involved in many activities. Unlike managers in other sectors, however, leaving professional practice does not mean moving away from the management of practice, nor does it mean losing accountability for what happens in social work. This point was highlighted by Lord Laming in the case of Victoria Climbié, where the link between a senior management role and accountability for any failure to protect was made: . . . those who occupy senior positions in the public sector must be required to account for any failure to protect vulnerable children from deliberate harm or exploitation (Inquiry and Recommendations Summary Report, 2003, p6).

In the case of Baby P in Haringey, the Head of Children Services was made accountable for the failure of staff to protect baby P through the very public termination of her employment. This was a significant development as social work managers have not been held accountable in past inquiries into child deaths.

In other sectors death or injuries have resulted in court cases where senior managers have been charged with manslaughter. In the Hatfield court case, for example, extracts from a national newspaper highlighted the issues.

The defence argued that it was unfair to make the five men scapegoats for decades of underspending on the network. Jonathan Goldberg QC told the court:

These five men worked in an underfunded, underinvested railway industry which had been neglected by governments of all parties for over 40 years and which had recently undergone a botched and unworkable privatisation.

John Pickering, a solicitor representing the families of the four people who died – Steve Arthur, Peter Monkhouse, Leslie Gray and Robert Alcorn – said there had been a mixed reaction when the manslaughter charges were dismissed during the trial.

On the one hand there is a desire for proper accountability and a recognition there has been a major wrong. On the other hand, how would the interest of justice be served by sending someone to prison if found guilty?

(Mark Milner, Guardian Article, 7 September 2005)

Whilst clearly the context within which these deaths occurred is different, increasingly ideas from one sector are being explored within another sector. In the case of managing risk, for example, many sectors calculate risk probabilities in their business and these calculations can affect the way that risk is managed. Social work managers can do the same, e.g., how many hours a week do you, or your staff, spend on supervising social workers who are working with high risk cases? Now ask yourself, how many hours should you or your staff be spending on supervising social workers who are working with high risk cases? Of course managing risk is far more complex than just allocating time to cases, but the idea is that if you think about the known risk factors you can then begin to take action to try to manage the known risks. So if you, or your staff, are not giving this area of work the time priority it needs then you are increasing one of the risk factors.

Being a manager in social work does mean you have to ensure that everyone remains focused upon the management of practice whatever services you are providing, and no matter how senior you rise within the organisation.

The management of people who deliver social work services therefore is a very important part of the manager’s role. People are social work’s greatest assets and without good staff quality services cannot be commissioned and delivered. A manager is responsible for the recruitment of the best staff, as well as the retention and development of those staff. Supervision is a key means by which managers can quality assure social work practice and monitor performance, as well as stay in touch with practice ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• About the author
• Introduction
• 1 Why good people management and leadership matters
• 2 The changing role of social work managers
• 3 Human resources and developing the best social work workforce
• 4 Managing yourself
• 5 Managing the performance of others
• 6 Managing and leading multi-professional teams
• 7 Leading and managing change
• 8 Looking forward
• References
• Index