Changing leadership, management and culture in mental health trusts
ISSN: 1361-9322
Article publication date: 1 September 2022
Issue publication date: 2 February 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how leadership, management practices and organisational cultures have changed in low and high-performing mental health (MH) providers between 2015 and 2020 in the English National Health Service.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a qualitative case study design comprising a purposeful sample of two low-performing and two high-performing MH providers, based on semi-structured interviews with 60 key informants (mostly internal to the organisation with some external informants from local Clinical Commissioning Groups).
Findings
The authors found major differences regarding leadership, management and organisational culture between low and high performing MH providers in 2015/2016, and that the differences had diminished considerably by 2019/20. In 2015/16, low performing providers were characterised by a “top-down” style of leadership, centralised decision-making and “blame cultures”. In contrast, the high performing providers were characterised as having more distributed, collaborative and inclusive styles of leadership/management, with open and supportive cultures. As the low performing providers changed and adapted their styles of leadership and management and organisational culture over the five-year period, they more closely resembled those of the high performing trusts.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the relationship between changing organisational factors and the performance of MH care providers. It provides evidence that it is possible for radical changes in leadership, management and organisational culture to be enacted over a relatively short period of time and that such changes may help low performing providers to turnaround their underperformance.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the Health Foundation as part of its quality and efficiency project. The authors are also grateful to the participating mental health providers, especially to the staff members who were interviewed and the R&D staff who supported the recruitment.
Citation
Konteh, F.H., Mannion, R. and Jacobs, R. (2023), "Changing leadership, management and culture in mental health trusts", Mental Health Review Journal, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/MHRJ-03-2022-0018
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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