Leadership Transition Presentation Amy Capewell, Ali Neville, Karen Cole, Rosie Eastwood, Shelley Mattocks and Elen Roberts

Teresa Chinn MBE * Professional Social Media Community Developer, blogger, speaker, presenter, social media consultant and NURSE. * Qualified as a nurse in the 90’s and has worked in a variety of settings * Last 5 years – working as an agency nurse and increasingly feeling disconnected from the traditional nursing environment, access to peers, training and knowledge. * As a result Teresa developed We Nurses on social media particularly on Twitter to form a community for nurses working outside of the NHS. * We Nurses was born * Today Teresa enjoys supplying support to nurses connecting via Twitter, working with NHS Trusts, The Department of Health and the NMC to support the on-going creation of value social media brings to nurses and healthcare.

Why we chose Teresa Chinn… As a group, we choose Teresa because she is an inspiration to nurses, students & service users, with ample nursing experience and leadership. By Teresa has enabled professionals to discuss important topics across all healthcare settings and brought together a whole community of healthcare professionals. Social media is an ever growing important tool within healthcare for support (both personal & professional) and also networking with other professionals from different professions to influence practice has been an integral influence in expanding our knowledge & understanding & allowing us to network with people we wouldn't necessarily get the chance to learn from.

Question 1. What are the most important values you demonstrate as a leader? Tough question to start – I guess high on my agenda is courage, and this is probably because I often lack courage and it’s one of the things I struggle with. I have never really seen myself as a heroic, charging in to save the day leader but more of a quietly working to change things type of leader. I also think that having a strong moral compass helps when it comes to making tough decisions as I always think if I have clear reasoning behind why I do something then that has to be a good thing. I think you also have to care, and I mean really care; care about people, care about the direction things are going in and care about nursing … caring can mean you cry a bit (a lot!) at times but it’s so much better than the alternative. Be kind – it helps to be kind to people and always try to help when you can. Finally, it’s important to be really hard working, to lead, to innovate, to drive things forward you have to work bloomin (can I say that?) hard … but it’s definitely worth it.

Question 2. Throughout your career, can you name a leader who inspired you and why? Eric Qualman is the first – he’s had a huge impact on everything social media I have ever done. I read his book Socialnomics about 6 years ago now and thought nursing could learn from this … and to this day I still apply his fundamental principles of social media to nursing. Eric Qualman said “We no longer have a choice about whether we do social media only how well we do it” Anne Cooper on Twitter and well worth a follow) – she taught me to take a deep breath and have courage. She also hugely inspired me with the starfish story : Making a difference to one person is making a difference and is so important.

Question 3. As founder of WeNurses, do you think that social media has a place in leadership within healthcare? Yes (I couldn’t very well say no to this one!) I believe that as nurses we can use social media to: -inform our work -as part of our work -to share our work and leadership plays a huge part in role modelling and leading the way with this. Social media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate, it’s a world of expertise in the palm of our hand and it gives us a voice … social media enables leaders to be accessible and visible.

Question 4. What resources would you recommend to someone wanting to gain insight into becoming a better leader? Twitter (too obvious?) – get tweeting, follow people you admire and who inspire you, get to know them, chat to them. Also the not so obvious answer is do an NHS Leadership course.. I did one and it helped me hugely.

Question 5. What do you do to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a leader? Errrmmm another tough one – I’m not sure that I formally do anything. I have great support networks that really help and reflection helps. Also just talking and tweeting, joining in the conversation, being curious about new things, reading (lots) and grabbing every single opportunity with both hands.

Question 6. How do you think we can incorporate service users ideas into future leadership? Open up channels of communication and talk to them – I’m not sure that putting people into boxes helps, I have come across many “service users” who have taught me so much about leadership.. but really they are people, people who are kind enough to share their thoughts an insights and have conversations … if we join in these conversations, listen and reflect then we can learn so much. So open up channels of communication, read and listen to what people have to say and ideas will grow and flourish.

Twitter Chat

What is a Twitter Chat?

Question 1 (Screen shots)

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Statistics…

During our twitter debate… The total number of people involved in the chat was 79 The total number of tweets written during the debate was 445 The total number of people reached during the debate was over 3 million!

Conclusion Twitter is a useful tool to network with other professionals to enhance our own knowledge and understanding of leadership and management… …You are never alone as a nurse!

Useful links