Quick wins for neighbourhood leadership – collaborate, energise, listen

What do leaders need to deliver neighbourhood health at pace?

1. Firstly, to break *down siloed working – not a new challenge but often a tricky one. Partner organisations may be bruised from previous experience or struggling with their own priorities so it might be time to try a new approach and it’s definitely time to persevere. If initial efforts don’t seem to pay off, try again. Having quality conversations about shared values and the population need can start the ball rolling.
2. Crucially we need to be creating the appetite and *energy for change at a time when morale may be low. Again, not a new requirement but it’s going to be really important to get engagement and maintain momentum. Bring your own energy, share stories and work on inspiring others – about the big and the small things.
3. To truly listen – to our workforce and *our communities and drive the change they want and need. We can always improve our active listening skills and this is something we can practice easily. Think about how it feels to be really listened too and truly heard and work hard to offer that. Try to tune in to your level of listening so that you can turn it up when required. Coachees often tell me that they feel there isn’t time to listen to everyone but once they work on that conscious tune in, they realise listening can be part of everything we do – and it improves things.

Leaders need to think about their behaviour and their style – how we behave in 2026 is going to shape our response to the vision for neighbourhood health. The draft Management and Leadership framework* list of required competencies includes:

• balancing safety, productivity and wellbeing
• communicating and listening effectively, and with clarity and purpose
• creating a high performing work environment and a sense of engagement
• managing challenging circumstances
• managing conflict and sensitive conversations
• supporting others through change

From my experience of talking to leaders while delivering training and coaching over the past 12 months, I feel assured that the emotional intelligence, skill and experience is largely out there. What we need is the confidence to deliver, and the afore-mentioned energy. It will perhaps feel brave to push forward with enthusiasm when colleagues are still resettling and anxiety is high. Instead of waiting for permission or an immediate ally, leaders should work fast to cultivate a psychologically safe environment in which to listen, to allow for ideas and then to act, and this needs to extend beyond their own team and into the neighbourhood.

So, there’s something about having the courage not just of our convictions, for which decision-making will need to be at once collaborative and decisive, but also the courage to drive new ways of working across organisational boundaries. Leaders must build meaningful, effective relationships to provide excellent patient services and to do that they will need to address the workplace culture by recognising and maximising differences. Look at the strengths in the community and explore how to work together.

And finally, that confidence is going to need to include some self-belief. This difficult period will get easier and we will make progress. Remember to look after you, as well as your team. Revisit your successes, even the slight ones, record and reread positive feedback (even a casual comment) and remember that ‘good enough’ is probably exactly that. Be proud of how you’re doing! Believe that you have the strength and experience to lead your part of the system to create neighbourhoods which improve population health outcomes.

Case study

“I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to be part of this programme” Between 2023-2025, PCC delivered a bespoke leadership development programme for cluster leads in Welsh health boards, commissioned by Health Education and Improvement Wales. Very similar to neighbourhoods, the clusters remit is to pull together, develop and run with new ways of working to improve population health. Our programme focussed on:

• building confidence (as some but not all cluster leads were relatively new to leadership)
• collaborative working – building and maintaining effective relationships across organisational boundaries, understanding one another.
• influencing skills
• leading change

We skilfully provided the space and opportunity for participants to share and learn from one another through a blended programme of training workshops, action learning sets and one-to-one executive coaching

The programme received excellent feedback from cluster leads across five cohorts including from pharmacy leads in 2025: “Hugely valuable programme to enhance confidence and support development of individuals new to leadership roles” “Very useful sessions to develop a sense of belonging and to build relationships. The theory was delivered in relation to our roles which added value and created an active learning environment.”

PCC is helping to develop leaders across neighbourhoods including facilitating new collaboration, training and coaching. We’ve worked with hundreds of NHS leaders through many years of change programmes and organisational restructures and we are skilled at bringing people together and at supporting individuals and teams.

I’d be happy to talk to you about what we offer – helen.ellis@pcc.nhs.uk.