Cancer workforce: clinical leadership guidance

6 Implementation Principles

This guidance is intended to demonstrate the value of embedding a strategic approach to leadership development and to encourage both individuals and managers across cancer services in Scotland to consider how best to take this forward in accordance with their own individual and organisational circumstances. There is no one-size-fits all approach to implementation. We also acknowledge that additional to the Scotland-wide tools and programmes highlighted in this document, there are also Board-specific learning and development opportunities available. We have set out below a number of implementation principles to support a national approach whilst allowing flexibility in local delivery.

Approaches to implementation should:

• Encourage individual use of development diagnosis tools (such as those summarised in table 1).
• Seek to align individual career development with organisational/ service/ departmental needs.
• Consider this guidance alongside Board specific opportunities when determining individual learning plans.
• Fuel a continuous spread of leadership skills – one approach could be the implementation of a leadership development register of staff working in cancer services that have undertaken leadership/ quality improvement learning and development. This could be utilised to ensure staff have access to mentors or advice from others with relevant experience.
• Support the continued use of skills developed by ensuring individuals have the opportunity to practice knowledge and skills gained.