Leadership Amidst Change and Crisis
In pursuit of excellence, broadening my professional horizons and extending my practice, I stepped into the role of a clinical manager in aged care, then later as a service manager in mental health. What surprised me most in these roles was realising that the attribute I leaned on most was not my clinical expertise — though clinical skill is non‑negotiable and forms the backbone of decision‑making but my people skills. Leadership requires a constant discernment of when to be instructional and directive, and when to be pastoral and nurturing. Both are essential.
Organisational KPIs are tangible, measurable, and often urgent. The directive approach provides clarity and structure to move toward these goals. But KPIs are never achieved in isolation. Your team must move with you, not behind you. And for that, intrinsic motivation is required. This is where the pastoral and nurturing approach becomes vital, helping staff navigate their fears, biases, and unconstructive thoughts. Over time, this approach not only connects you with the people you lead, it shapes the cultural landscape of the team.
If organisational systems and processes are the brain, then culture is the heart. Processes are often the first to be rewritten because they are tangible. Culture, however, is abstract, intangible, and deeply human. Yet the tangible results such as the KPIs, the outcomes, the improvements are simply by‑products of a workplace with positive culture and embedded processes. When culture is open, grounded, and collective, changes in systems are adopted smoothly. Without positive culture, even the best processes will sit atop chaos.
Leadership is the art of straddling these two parallel worlds: the tangible systems and the intangible culture. There is no panacea, no one‑size‑fits‑all models, no “ten easy steps” to guarantee success. Leadership amidst change and crisis is a continual process of constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing systems, processes, and relationships.
What becomes clearer through this journey is that leadership is not only about guiding others, it is about anchoring yourself. Your values become the grounding force in uncertainty. Leaders are stewards of people, knowledge, and resources already present within the organisation. Our role is to help teams see and believe in their own capability, even when everything else feels unstable.
Then often a quiet realisation emerges: amidst the change and chaos, the capability, capacity, and clarity have always been within the workplace and within the people you lead.
