Top Tips for a Work-life Balance in Leadershipwritten and a recognition that these are the...

Top Tips for aWork-life Balancein Leadership

FOREWORD BY DAME RUTH CARNALL & SAMANTHA JONES

It started one evening with a question around balance, some ideal musings, a Twitter conversation and a glass of wine. What followed was a significant amount of interest in the Top Ten Tips for a life & work that had been written and a recognition that these are the challenges that we all face, irrespective of age, seniority, sector or sex. We also knew from conversations with people that this is not a subject that is openly discussed and there remains a significant number of anxieties about whether it is possible to balance work and have a life; what are the expectations from people up the line; how do people do it in practice and what’s the right way for me.

What we do know is that there isn’t one way of doing things, it is very personal. We also know that things change and people approach things in a different way at different times.

We decided to combine our favourite things, people and an opportunity to hear from a wide variety of individuals about how they approach balancing their life. Call it our version of the sunscreen song, we hope you enjoy it!

Foreword

Dame Ruth Carnall + Samantha Jones

1. If a job is important and has the power and influence to create change and improvement in health care, then it’s worth doing. There is no one way of doing it – there are endless ways, and in any case few things are achieved by individuals alone. It is teams working together with synergy that create momentum for change. So think in terms of “can I create a team that can do this? Can I bring a group of people together who want to do this? Who wants to help me get these results?”

2. Always have the best people around you and invest in them and their development. Celebrate the fact they are different from you. Never, ever appoint in your own image. If you need a detail person make it something you love (in someone else ). If you need a big picture painted for you, don’t get frustrated that said big picture person never nails the detail. If you are an extrovert, shut up for a minute and listen to the quiet wisdom of the introvert.

3. Be really clear why you want a job - what is it you want to achieve and set out: “this is why I want to do this job”. Do the people recruiting you want the same thing as well? If not, don’t do it. This helps to drive your priorities. Be utterly ruthless about this. If you don’t then your time will be managed by others. Be prepared for the criticism that you don’t care about A or B or C. I was accused of not caring about children because it wasn’t one of my absolute top priorities at the time.

4. Set out how you will do the job. Be prepared to turn it down. When I first returned from my second mat leave, I wanted to work part time. My then medical director and I suggested a job share (he was an orthopaedic surgeon); we thought it was innovative. The best of both worlds, clinical and managerial. Also he hilariously said “you can have the money, I’m not bothered”. The Chairman said he could not see how it would work. So I left. You can do part time: have a great deputy who you pay more money from the money saved by your part time working. It won’t cost anyone any more overall. They will get development you will get time.

5. If you have small children, try to stick to jobs which have little political interface. In my experience, the closer you are to national politics the less real the role becomes and the more likely it is you will have to “perform” according

to a distorted set of priorities. You can do such a role later in life if you really want to. Unfortunately many high profile national roles have a tendency to distort people and their priorities. Somehow the proximity to political power can be seductive to some eg. “I said to the Secretary of State blah blah and he said to me …oh Fred what a fantastic idea that is blah blah…..”. It doesn’t happen to everyone but I’ve seen it time and again and people can be run ragged chasing approval from political leaders. Usually not worth it if you value your time.

6. Try to have a leadership role within a community of some sort which you can integrate with your family life. Involving children in work can be fun, and there are all sorts of events at which you can be visible which can also be fun for kids. League of Friends, summer fetes, open house for local schools, parties of all kinds. I used to love taking mine round the wards on Christmas Eve, especially Care of the Elderly. They got spoilt and I got to say thank you to staff.

7. It may be best to avoid high profile roles in London for a while. There is a culture which is hard to crack of late nights, dinners, drinks etc. Fun if you have no responsibility, but not otherwise. For many years I said a blanket no to all central London jobs. Until my kids were old enough.

8. Be determined to avoid “being seen to be seen.“ No breakfasts, no dinners, no random networking. Ask “is this going to help with my priorities?” If no, don’t do it. Ignore all the “oh I sat next to sir this or sir that” …it’s all pretty useless to getting anything done. Later on you might enjoy some of it but if you have kids it’s not essential.

9. Think about all the stuff that needs doing at home which you don’t enjoy. Be prepared to spend a lot of money having it all done for you. This is buying time. Cleaners, dry cleaners and shirt ironing services, gardeners, home car wash, patio cleaners, carpet cleaners, window cleaners, decorators…..anything at all that you don’t like doing, then don’t do it. This will take a lot of your money but it’s worth it.

10. Start really tough about what is and isn’t acceptable. For example week end working, late night phone calls, email traffic, earliest acceptable time to contact you. Set a high bar …you can always relax it but you can never ever get tougher later.

Ruth has over 30 years’ experience in health care, including 20 years as a chief executive in acute hospitals, mental health, community services and health authorities. She spent seven years in charge of the NHS in London as Chief Executive of NHS London and now works providing strategic advice to leaders in health care.

Prior to NHS London, Ruth worked as an independent consultant with a range of clients from the public and private sector, including the Department of Health, Monitor, NHS Trusts, the Prime Minister’s Delivery Office, the Cabinet Office and GSK. She was appointed by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in 2013 to provide advice and expertise on major health issues affecting London. Ruth was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2011 for her achievements in health care.

Dame Ruth Carnall

WORK LIFE BALANCE IN LEADERSHIP4

Samantha was appointed as NHS England’s New Care Models Programme Director in January 2015 leading the implementation of new models of care as outlined in the NHS Five Year Forward View.

She started her NHS career as a paediatric and general nurse and was a national management trainee. Having worked in a variety of operational management roles, and in the national clinical governance support team, she became the Chief Executive of Epsom and St Helier Hospitals NHS Trust.

Following this, Samantha worked in the independent sector before she was appointed Chief Executive of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust in February 2013.

In 2014 she was awarded Health Service Journal Chief Executive of the Year and the trust’s “Onion” was highly commended in the patient safety award.

Following a sabbatical in late 2017, Sam is now working across a range of public & private organisations and institutions, connecting business and industry with the NHS and local Government to design and deliver better care for people. In 2017, Sam was honoured to be recognised as ‘Woman of the Year’.

@SamanthaJNHS

1. Everyone’s own balance is just that, their own. Recognising this has taken me quite a long time. Just because something works for someone, it might not work for you. And that’s ok;

2. As much as in my head I bake organic bread; grow vegetables; do the ironing & cleaning…none of this is true. Outsource, if you can afford it, as much as you can. Having proper time with the family takes priority over everything and therefore dropping things that you don’t need to do to maximise that time is crucial;

3. Family time is precious to us, and work is part of who we are…but we cant do everything and recognising that was important;

4. Find the best PA and hold on to them. I can’t function without mine. It can only work if it’s a true partnership and you let go and listen to what they say to you (or at least try to as much as possible);

5. Set your own boundaries and stick to them. Sports days; parents evenings; school drop off/pick ups. Put them in the diary as early as you can at the start of the year. Joe and I have a strong partnership and we share as much as we can. Diary meetings take place far too often at home but without them, we couldn’t function;

6. Resilience is often talked about and hard to describe. For me, it means keeping as healthy as I can; doing different things and having a day very often where I have nothing in the diary. Needed for the soul. I was once told I was a better Chief Executive after I had had children than I was before. It was hard feedback but entirely fair…people who work 24 hours a day aren’t fun to be around…and also less effective;

7. Build a few trusted advisors and listen to them. For me they are invaluable. None of them sugar coat any of what they say – but all of them make me stop and think;

8. I know I need to know the children are ok and settled to be able to do my job as well as I can. If you have child care, be comfortable with it and make sure it works for you. I once gave some advice to someone about needing to trust their instinct with their nanny…and realised I hadn’t been ….big lesson - always trust your instinct!

9. Work out who you are and be confident in it. I was once told I needed to cut my hair to get anywhere in management…I didn’t listen and seem to have done ok. More importantly, your authenticity will shine through as a result if you are comfortable as you can be in your skin;

10. A wise man once told me to follow the north star and recognise that the rest is noise. When things have been tough, this has worked for me.

Samantha Jones

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Paul Bate joined babylon in July 2016 and leads babylon’s work with the NHS. Paul has been at the centre of policy and delivery on health for the last ten years, having worked at 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet Office and the Care Quality Commission as well as advising numerous NHS trusts, GP practices and commissioners.

Paul joined babylon from the Care Quality Commission, where he was a full Board Member and Executive Director of Strategy and Intelligence. He held national system roles including leading the Data and Outcomes domain of the Paperless 2020 programme. He was a member of the NHS Finance and Efficiency Board, New Models of Care Board and National Quality Improvement and Leadership Development group.

Prior to CQC, Paul worked at Downing Street for the Coalition Government, where he was the senior policy adviser on health and social care to both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. He also worked for the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit under the last Labour government, where he led the health team and ran national reviews on cancer, elective waiting times, long term conditions and healthcare acquired infections.

Paul has a strong background in strategy, finances and organisational design, including working for consultants McKinsey & Company and as a director of 2020 Delivery. He achieved his doctorate in particle physics from the University of Manchester in 1999

Don’t be a pratt

1. The best advice I ever had was from a boss quoting Maya Angelou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Whether people know it was you who made them feel good is really not important.

2. Never, ever expect someone to learn if you’re scaring them – it’s biologically impossible and morally lame. Pretty much any job comes with the ability to make people happy or scared and the more senior the role, the bigger the stakes. Fear is a survival instinct … but it’s a motivator for the stone age, not the information age.

Use your time well – once it’s gone, it’s gone.

3. Prioritise and then prioritise your priorities – I’m happy if I can do one thing each day that substantially helps deliver my main goal, and prevent one thing that would stop it being delivered (and it’s up to you to set meaningful goals in the first place).

4. What matters is outcomes, not inputs. Some actions mean you can have a 20x effect on people’s lives, some things 2x and there’s very little difference in how hard you have to work to achieve each. And it’s the same with jobs overall. Do the things that make the most impact on whatever it is that you want to achieve.

5. Once I’ve decided to leave a job, I’ve found that it’s best not to hang on. I’ve spent a lot of my career in the advice-giving business, and I think there’s a duty to make sure that advice is objective. So if it is too hard to argue against the things you’ve previous advocated, leave and let someone else do it properly. That doesn’t mean downing tools and it’s only fair to let your boss / Board know that you want to move on. But whatever your job, once you’ve made the emotional decision to leave you won’t be able to do the job as well as you used to, and however amazing you are, the organisation will survive without you.

Advice is a gift

6. For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong (I wish I’d thought of this

myself but I didn’t – HL Mencken did). Good solutions come from engaging with the evidence, with people using and / or paying for the service, people delivering the service, and politicians – it’s not good enough to ignore any of these and just causes problems down the line.

7. No-one enjoys getting negative feedback, so have at least three nice things to say as well and make them real – everyone’s got things that can be celebrated. And for the stuff that’s not so good - be specific, focus on impact and ask yourself if it really is the right time to let the person know what you think. Having stated my career with a company that prized “brutal honesty”, my take is that the real price of honesty is sensitivity. Good feedback will help you build your team and manage your workloadm but bad feedback will quickly break those bonds.

8. I used to prefer doing to coaching, and I still need time on my own to think things through. But there are few things more rewarding that congratulating a colleague for doing something that’s stretched them, helped them learn and meant I’ve not had to work so hard.

And lastly but most importantly: never compromise on family, on friends or on integrity

9. I’m getting less judgemental as I get older. People do lots of seemingly strange things for very good internal reasons. What really matters is whether you can justify your actions to yourself – if you can’t, it’s best not to put yourself in the position of justifying them to anyone else.

10. Dropping in and out of the lives of people closest to me is no basis for a set of nurturing, loving relationships. So no matter how insightful the slide pack, how important the chat with the boss, or the dinner with the client – it’s not worth it if it means that you keep letting your loved ones down. Too many times I told myself that I’d just stay another ten minutes and found myself still working an hour later on things that really didn’t matter that much … I’d rather be remembered for how a bedtime story made my children feel than for a briefing document that will have long ago been forgotten. And that’s why the Maya Angelou quote means so much to me.

Paul Bate


Hatty CadmanHatty Cadman leads the Healthcare practice at Saxton Bampfylde, working across the NHS, private health and care provision, academia and the third sector.

She has advised on board-level appointments for more than 15 years, for organisations as wide-ranging as HCA, The Royal Marsden, London Ambulance Service, Genomics England and Macmillan, and is motivated by helping healthcare organisations appoint brave and inspiring leaders who can change health and wellness for the better.

Hatty is also a Governor of The Queen’s School.

1. Nobody said it was easy. I often meet non-executives who, reflecting back on the earlier, executive leadership, phase of their careers, talk about “a crazy time – I had a big job, two small children, a mortgage - the juggling was horrendous”. This is the stage of life and work we are now in, and the demands are huge, and multi-faceted. For me, remembering that this is supposed to be a busy, intense, time of life is helpful. We are not alone in finding it challenging, and finding it challenging is not a reflection of weakness or inefficiency.

2. Prioritise what is still going to matter in 6 months’ time. We are all confronted with multiple, competing, priorities: leaders in our health and care systems are juggling operational pressures, people challenges, strategic plans, political and reputational implications, the list goes on. The best leaders I meet are crystal clear about what their organisation needs from them and they manage their time ruthlessly to those ends. Personally, “will I still be worried about this in 6 months?” keeps me focused.

3. Run! Or something like it. I started running for my physical health but in fact have found its greatest value has been to my mental health. It clears my mind, and gives me about 90 minutes a week away from the demands of others.

4. Treat your children like a work commitment. I’m very aware that the way I have phrased this sounds awful: of course my children are more important to me than any work commitment. I put it the way I do deliberately though: pressures at work, and the inertia that needs to be overcome to get up and leave mid flow, makes lots of us effectively deprioritise our children by reneging on a promise in favour of work. I like this mantra is because it reminds me that I readily refuse one work demand if I need to honour another work commitment.

5. Be the role model you wish you’d had. One of the (many) dangers of Imposter Syndrome is that it stops us recognising that we are role models. If your head is teeming with thinking you’re about to be found inadequate in your role, you won’t consciously think about how you are role modelling leadership in your organisation. In fact there will be people all around you – not just women, not just parents – looking

to you both for leadership on work life balance, and as an example of whether a senior role is do-able. In an NHS with a high percentage of vacant leadership roles, colleagues seeing you making time for the rest of your life and managing that in a way that seems to be fulfilling, is important. You may not think of yourself as a role model, but you will be, for good or ill, and the next generation is watching.

6. Take your annual leave. This is so obvious but I meet many leaders who have made the mistake of being under sustained pressure which made them lose sight of what really mattered. Stepping away, physically, from daily life is an important, necessary, mechanism for refreshing our energy, resilience and clarity of thinking.

7. Use your commute well. To be time-poor and to waste hours a day travelling is incredibly frustrating, so planning how best to use journeys is helpful.

8. Delegate at home. Leaving brilliant management skills at work and becoming the worst sort of micromanager at home doesn’t help anyone. If you are fortunate to have childcare at home, recognise that you are trusting someone with the safety and welfare of your child and ought, therefore, to trust them to book a dental check. I would also make a case for applying the same principle to your life partner: recognise that you share responsibility for your lives togetherand off-spring, and that it is therefore not quite fair for them to be lying on a sofa while you run around the house at 10.30 at night preparing for a children’s party.

9. Find your flexibility and take it. I have very limited flexibility in my working day, but can usually juggle to take the odd day off. For others, doing the school drop-off once a week is possible with careful diary planning but occasional days off never work out. It will be different for all of us, and it will change as your life changes, but reflect on it, and give yourself permission to make the most of the opportunities you have for flexibility.

10. Treat yourself occasionally, in a way that makes you feel good and that reminds you that you are valued – at work, and by yourself.

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Caroline is the Group chief finance officer and deputy chief executive at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. She was formerly director of strategy at NHS North Central London. Prior to that she was an associate partner in KPMG’s health strategy team.

She has spent most of her career in NHS finance, having been director of finance at Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and City and Hackney Primary Care Trust.

Caroline has been the trust’s chief finance officer since 2011. In 2012 she was made the finance director of the year by the Healthcare Financial Management Association. She was appointed as the trust’s deputy chief executive in 2012.

She is currently a member of the advisory board to the Learning Clinic and sits on the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy health panel.

1. If you are struggling to prioritise, think about the things that only you can do. Delegate the rest.

2. Invest in technology to make your life easier. And get friends like Sam Jones to teach you new-time saving apps. And how to have a really good filing system. I’ve never looked back.

3. Surround yourself with people who are better than you. Don’t be afraid to employ the best people you possibly can, and plan for them to succeed you. The job is rarely about you, always about the team.

4. Never go to a meeting unless you know why you are there and what role you have to play. And always ensure that meetings you run are structured in a way that everyone understands – what’s the point of the meeting? Is everyone on the same page? What needs to be decided? What’s for information? Does the issue even need a meeting? As I get older I am increasingly brutal with my diary and regularly try and cull meetings.

5. Learn how to be succinct in communication. Contextualise, understand your impact on your audience, and how they prefer to receive information (some people will listen to you, others like a written narrative, others like pictures, many are easily bored). Thinking about this up front, and employing a variety of strategies will save unnecessary repetition later on.

6. Outsource domestic stuff (apart from the love, obviously). Ocado exists for a reason.

7. Be clear with your family about work commitments. Leadership roles are big, imperfect and will eat into your time, so creating boundaries is important. Maybe have one or two mornings and evenings that you will socialise and network in, but keep the others free. And don’t send late night emails! It sets a horrible example.

8. I have introduced my partner and daughter to quite a few of my colleagues. This has helped them understand who I’m working with and probably made them more forgiving when I screw up.

9. Plan date nights with important people, and stick to them. They take you away from day to day stress, and allow the people around you to know that they continue to matter. I find flowers and (pleasant) surprises quite helpful too.

10. Read. Anything unrelated to work. Even if it’s The Week. It will make you remember that you are part of an expanding human race and that you are a tiny tiny part of it. The best advice I had from an older CEO was “you need to get over yourself” in order to lead, and to be comfortable in your own skin.

Caroline Clarke


1. Know who you are and understand the impact you have on others, this is essential for being able to influence people from all backgrounds.

2. Treat people as you would expect to be treated yourself, respect, dignity and civility cost nothing and the rewards for this behaviour to others are great.

3. Have fun and be fun, life is short and needs to be enjoyable as well as hard work, laughing a lot keeps you looking and feeling young.

4. Have your family and friends around you as much as possible, they sustain and nurture you and enable you to be of your best in the workplace.

5. Be forgiving and do not hold onto old grudges or try to get revenge on your perceived enemies, this takes energy that can best be used delivering on your objectives or your goals.

6. Look after your body you only have one, do not abuse it with too much of anything, food, drink, drugs. Keep it clean and healthy, appreciate and value it.

7. Find ways of really relaxing, walking, music, baking, whatever it takes.

8. Seek to find a role that you absolutely love. If you are passionate about your work, you don’t have to work a day in your life.

9. Be humble and remember those that are less fortunate than you, in the workplace these might be people that are in lower positions than you and in life generally give gratitude and thanks for what you have and acknowledge that some people have less.

10. Share your wisdom and your experiences, help others learn from your experience so they too can be the best that they can be.

Yvonne commenced nurse training at Central Middlesex Hospital in 1977, qualified as a general nurse in 1980 and then went on to qualify in mental health nursing and health visiting. In 1986 she secured her first NHS management job and has since held a number of operational and strategic leadership posts.

Yvonne is currently the Director – WRES Implementation in NHS England, she is a member of the equality and diversity council at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in the United States where she has helped develop their inclusion strategy. Yvonne has delivered lectures on inclusion and diversity at Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts and the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. She continues to work closely with world expert on health and race Professor D. Williams, of Harvard University School of Public Health.

In 2012 Yvonne was appointed a Magistrate to the North London bench. She has been voted by colleagues in the NHS as one of the top 50 most inspirational women, one of the top 50 most inspirational nurse leaders and one of the top 50 BME pioneers and in December 2017 she was included in the HSJ top 100 influential leaders list. Yvonne was awarded an OBE for services to healthcare in 2010 and was appointed to the position of Director for WRES implementation in June 2015.

Yvonne Coghill OBE

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Mark first qualified as a nurse before moving into general and senior management roles within the NHS. He has worked at senior Director level at a number of high profile London Hospital Trusts, including Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

He also held the role of Managing Director at Whipps Cross, and in the newly merged Barts Health NHS Trust he became their Executive Director for Delivery. Before taking up the post of Chief Executive at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust Mark held the role of Regional Chief Operating Officer for the Midlands and East at NHS Improvement.

Mark is passionate about leadership development, and he is committed to working with patients, championing the best outcomes for each and every one.

1. I try to remember that work-life balance is not fancy speak for doing less work but that everyone that works has a work-life balance (whether they want one or not). The question is, whether that balance is right for me. I run a hospital and so I’m going to be busy, I’m going to be dealing with things at unexpected times. That’s all part of the job and I recognise these demands on my time and I’m comfortable with that. However, I also recognise the importance of securing enough downtime to enable me to do my job effectively, without feeling guilty.

2. I think it’s really important to be able to delegate confidently, so you know you are using your time effectively. In order to do that, I do what I can to make sure I have the right team around me. If I reflect on occasions where I have felt my work-life balance hasn’t been great, some of that has been down to me constantly playing catch up trying to compensate for not being able to make best use of my team, for some reason.

3. I try to remember that I do have to say no to some things. I can’t do everything. Whether it’s in a context of work or my social life, I try to think about what will really support what we’re doing at the hospital or what I’ll really enjoy socially and say no to the rest. It can generate unnecessary stress.

4. I think it’s important to carve out time to invest in the things that make you happy. We got a puppy about six years ago as we’d wanted a dog for some time. I wasn’t absolutely sure I’d find the time to do my share of looking after him but I do make time and I really value the time I spend with him. This means I make the time to take him out for walks, because we all enjoy it.

5. I now recognise that my work-life balance affects other people’s work-life balance. Whether it’s my family or people I work with, I try to consider whether it sets the right example for others, whether it makes my family happy. If it doesn’t then even if I’m happy with it, I try to change it. Although I wouldn’t describe myself as a perfect example just yet, I am aware of it, which I think it important.

6. If there’s something you can do to keep yourself on good form, ringfence the time and commit to it. I enjoy regular exercise and I find that if I don’t do it first thing in the morning, it doesn’t happen. Regular exercise makes me happier and I really think that a healthy, clear mind allows me to make better decisions and stay on track for the work life balance I try to stick to.

7. In this day and age with technology etc, it’s more difficult to set boundaries. It’s interesting when you hear people say switch phones off and don’t look at them etc but the reality is that its an important part of the job I do and my drive to be accessible. However, I am disciplined about trying to avoid excessive work other than emails at home, to keep some separation. There are times when this isn’t possible of course, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

8. It sounds obvious, but where you live has a big impact on your work-life balance. When taking up my current role I chose to relocate in order to have an easier journey to work, spend more time at the hospital and less time wasted travelling each day. In that sense, I chose to do this to improve my work-life balance. I recognise this isn’t possible for everyone, but there’s something about being realistic about the impact these things can have on your life, if you are not careful.

9. I try not to stress over achieving the perfect work-life balance. At the end of the day, it’s counterproductive. I try to remember that things will ebb and flow and if I feel like something’s not working, I try to change it. I realise I am responsible for influencing and owning my own work-life balance.

10. Again, it sounds obvious, but investing time doing the things I enjoy and with friends and family is very important to me. I tend to avoid any social engagements during the week, but try to protect time with friends and family at weekends. When I get the balance right, I know it and so do those around me. They’re also quick to tell me when I don’t, which is a good reminder!

Mark Cubbon


1. Start as you mean to go on - set habits early, particularly with regards to your diary and ensuring you give yourself time to do those things that are important to you. How you prioritise your time and what you choose to prioritise gives significant signals to your team and the organisation.

2. Look after yourself! Resilience is a term often used but taking steps to be the best version of yourself each and everyday takes time, commitment and focus. Eating healthily, getting enough sleep, staying hydrated and taking regular exercise are all well proven to help maintain positive health and wellbeing. That doesn’t mean becoming an Olympic athlete, everyone can take simple steps to improve their resilience.

3. Learn how to say no - a really difficult discipline. Saying yes to every request, whilst you might think is positive and means you’re being accessible, can dilute your impact, distract from your main priorities and potentially disempower your team. Make sure you’re spending your time on the right things.

4. Choose when to make decisions / propose solutions wisely - leadership positions are not always about being the final decision maker (particularly as a CEO). Have the confidence in, and create the right conditions for colleagues and teams to design and implement solutions they have designed. And support them.

5. Surround yourself with the best thinkers, doers and innovators you can find! It’s infectious and creates an environment that people find attractive to come and work in. This shouldn’t just be in your own organisation, choose your partners, coaches, mentors with this in mind.

6. Spend a decent proportion of your time being curious, walking around, listening, watching - speaking to colleagues from all parts of the organisation as often as you can. Getting a “feel” for the organisation and its “drumbeat” is critical in getting assurance and identifying areas/themes for improvement...or successes that need to be shared and celebrated! This also applies to other sectors/ industries / organisations.....and pinch with pride if you spot good stuff!

7. Work life balance - take your holidays as opportunities to recharge, refresh and connect with family and friends. Be a good role model - demonstrate what good looks like and don’t foster a “first in, last out” or long hours being valued culture. And no late night and weekend emails! They can be soul sucking for colleagues who will see that as a signal they need to be connected and responding 24/7.

8. Have Fun!!!! I don’t mean being everyone’s mate or cracking jokes all the time - but creating an environment that people look forward to working in is really important. I believe in The Happiness Advantage and creating a Culture of Joy (also known as positive psychology!) as it’s now really well researched and evidenced. Find out what this means for you and your organisation and play with it.

Aaron was appointed Chief Executive of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust in March 2018 after first joining in January 2014 as Director of Finance / Deputy Chief Executive.

Most recently, Aaron was the Director of Finance / Deputy Chief Executive of Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust – a role he was appointed to in June 2012. Prior to this, he was Director of Finance at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (LHCH).

Aaron started his career in the NHS as a National Graduate Trainee in 2000 and held a number of senior management positions in the Finance function before being appointed as Director of Finance at LHCH in August 2009.

Aaron has also held a number of national roles including Chair of the Foundation Trust Network Finance Directors’ Forum and the Government Procurement Services Customer Board, as well as being a member of the National Procurement Council.

Aaron Cummins

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Rebecca George OBETamara Finkelstein is a senior civil servant currently leading on Building Safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower Fire, and previously a director general at the Department of Health leading on out-of-hospital care.

1. It’s easier to find a way of balancing life and work if you enjoy both. That means you need to do a job you enjoy. For me that means finding the link between the work I do and something that might change in the real world as a result. In my current job we are seeking to improve building safety in the wake of Grenfell Tower. That makes it worth doing a bit of juggling of life and work.

2. An inspirational manager I once had used to tell me “it’s hard because it’s hard, not because you’re stupid”. Now when I face a challenge and can’t find the right answer and my inner voice of doubt is telling me that I’m not good enough, I remind myself of that saying and it really helps.

3. Everyone needs a good balance between life and work. It is not a special adjustment for parents of young children. Some people have childcare commitments, others mess around with motorcycles or like gardening, or need to look after their elderly parents, and all these activities need time. I try to actively help everyone have a good balance and talk about it so no-one feels their needs are less than anyone else.

4. Explain your working pattern to your team. Email and mobile phones have transformed my ability to manage home and work life. Clearly it means work can intrude into home but I prefer to be able to leave work by 6pm and pick things up later if needed. But when people see late night emails they can assume I’ve been working all evening and or that they need to answer straightaway. If I explain my pattern then everyone knows why and that there is no need to read or answer till the next day at the earliest.

5. Work gets done by teams not individuals. If you are able to build a team, build a diverse one with different skills and interests, different backgrounds and stages of life. As well as being better at getting the job done it is easier to support a good work life balance of everyone - not everyone will want half term off!

6. Find ways to network that don’t rely on out of hours activities. Talk to people in the margins of meetings, pass by their desk and have a quick chat, form WhatsApp groups of people you started work with or went on a course with, organise team coffee mornings.

7. Keep doing the things you enjoy in your life and protect that time in the diary. I’ve been part of both a women’s group and a book club for over 25 years and missing group meetings is not an option for me. These are the people who keep me sane when work or home is mad.

8. Find the affordable things that make life a little bit easier. Internet supermarket shopping transformed my life and made it possible to run my household. I had a colleague who invested in five school jumpers for each child so she didn’t need have to worry if the washing piled up during the week.

9. Embrace diverse work opportunities. Sometimes life means that career plans are hard to make or stick to. You may need to do a job that does not involve travel or avoid a job that will involve unpredictable late working. I have found that the jobs I’ve done because they seemed to fit better with life have given me extra experiences that are very valuable and a mix of skills that others do not have. Having no deliberate plan has served me well. Choosing a great manager can be the best guide to choosing a good job.

10. Remember you have a long working life. Getting the balance right between life and work may mean you take a career break at some point or work part time, or do a job that feels to you like you are treading water. But careers do not need to be linear and there are plenty of years to work. I’ve always found it hard to remember this and have missed out on interesting opportunities at one level in my rush to the next. So my advice is to look around as well as up, and enjoy what you do.

Tamara Finkelstein


1. Believe in yourself. Have confidence in your ability. Fight the imposter syndrome. Step up to your role and authority, take decisions (with appropriate consultation – but make them your decisions). Purposefully lead.

2. Talk to your partner about your hopes and aspirations early, before you actually get that job offer in America ….. make joint decisions about both your lives, work out roles and responsibilities and pay people to do anything that neither of you want to do or are able to do. If you have children, save all the time you can to spend with them.

3. Make sure that people know what you are achieving and what you have done – this isn’t about being cocky or bragging, but making sure that you are recognised for your achievements (and others don’t take the credit). Make sure you use the word ‘I’ from time to time, we most often say ‘we’.

4. Be nice. What goes around comes around and people you meet and work with now you will re-meet and work with again over the years. Make friends, be extra specially nice to support staff and people in the early stages of their careers.

5. Book your children’s birthdays, nativity plays and sports days off as vacation at the start of each year. Sweet talk your children’s school secretary to tell you the dates early, even though they may be ‘subject to change’. A bunch of flowers helps.

6. Echo the words of minorities in meetings. Pick up their points and reinforce them. Promote, encourage, hire and give extra roles to minorities in your organisation. Check with yourself from time to time you are paying special attention to people who are most different from you.

7. Go and get professional help for an image makeover every 10 years. Don’t get stuck wearing the clothes, shoes, makeup and hair which suited you in your twenties when you are forty. Women need to dress up a level, we don’t have the advantage of the boring uniforms men wear, and we need to look, as well as act, our seniority. Good professional advice makes sure that we do this creatively and uniquely without losing our own sense of style.

8. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Have people around you who complement you, make the total of your team equal more than the sum of the parts, have people you trust around you to challenge, coach and constructively criticise. Use, recognise and thank specialists who can do the things you cannot.

9. Negotiate your end of year appraisals, salary increases or compensation packages for new jobs. Women don’t tend to be brilliant at doing this in the appraisal session or interview. So do your homework. Get stakeholders on side beforehand and ask them to tell your appraiser or interviewer how brilliant you are. Get people to write nice things about you – and say how much you are worth.

10. When you are on holiday and you want to check your email, do it when your family are asleep, or off doing their own thing. When you are in the room with your family, be in the room with them and not on your email. Even if it’s watching Frozen for the 20th time.

11. Be authentic, ethical, honest and transparent. Especially when things go wrong. Say sorry. Learn from every mistake and failure – every great leader has to know how to lead in a crisis but you do have to have some practice on smaller problems first!

Rebecca leads the UK Public Sector practice in Deloitte, supporting government to drive large-scale, complex transformation programmes, for the benefit of the UK’s citizens.

Rebecca has worked exclusively with public sector clients for 15 years and has been with Deloitte, as a partner, for the last 10 years. Her previous roles at Deloitte have included Global Public Sector Health Care and Social Services Lead, and UK and EMEA Lead Partner for the health sector. She has worked extensively with central government departments such as the Treasury, Cabinet Office, Defra, and CLG as well as the Department of Health and broader NHS.

Her focus throughout her career has been on transformation enabled by technology. She is passionate about improving citizen outcomes across all the wide variety of public sector programmes.

Formerly Rebecca worked with IBM. She has been active in initiatives to increase the participation of Women in the IT industry since the mid-1990s. She is a VP and Trustee at the BCS and the Chartered Institute for IT, where she is a Fellow. She is a Liveryman at the Worshipful Company of IT.

Rebecca George OBE

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Dido became Chair of NHS Improvement on 30 October 2017. She is a non-executive director on The Court of the Bank of England and Chair of the Bank’s Remuneration Committee. She was Chief Executive of TalkTalk Telecom Group plc from 2010 to May 2017.

Prior to TalkTalk, Dido was Sainsbury’s convenience director, having been appointed to Sainsbury’s operating board in March 2008. Dido joined Sainsbury’s from Tesco plc where she held a variety of senior roles both in the UK and international businesses.

Prior to this, she worked at Kingfisher plc and Thomas Cook Limited where she gained considerable retail experience. She has also served on the boards of the British Land Company plc and Cheltenham Racecourse.

She is a trustee of Doteveryone and a member of the UK National Holocaust Foundation Board.

In August 2014, Dido was offered a peerage and sits in the House of Lords as a Conservative peer. She was appointed to the Economic Affairs Committee of the Lords in July 2017

1. There is no right way. Everyone will give you a different answer. In the end, you have to do what is right for you. So, the first thing you need to do is be honest with yourself, work out what brings out the best in you. We are all at our most effective and most fulfilled when we are being true to ourselves, so working out what kind of life you want to lead, what balance is right for you, regardless of what others might think, is key.

2. To steal shamelessly from Sheryl Sandburg’s book “Lean In”… pick your partner wisely. If you do want to have a career and a family, it’s much harder to do on your own, so having a partner that wants a life that is likely to be consistent with yours will make a huge difference. For me it has meant a partner who also wants to juggle career and family, and doesn’t expect me to be the only one making trade-offs and sacrifices, we do that together. For others that means a partner who cares for the children whilst you focus on your career for some or all the time your children are young. It’s much easier to do if you and your partner have an aligned approach that doesn’t leave one of you feeling hard done by.

3. It’s OK to change your mind. Recognise that we all change, and what your family needs from you, and what you want to give them will change over time. The right combination of career, family, personal time will change through your life - that’s OK! Only you and your family will know when it’s time to make some changes and when it’s not. My husband and I were adamant that we didn’t want children – for the first ten years of our married life – and took a while to work out how to make things work if we did want a family. Having been so public on not wanting children we had to eat a lot of humble pie when we told everyone I was pregnant!

4. Set yourself stretch targets. You are never too old or too senior to keep learning. My experience is the very best in the world are also the most self-critical. They always look at ways to improve, setting themselves goals they don’t quite yet know how to achieve.

5. Don’t make assumptions. One of the most insidious forms of unconscious bias is when we simply assume that because someone has a family they won’t want to do a certain job. It’s even worse when we do this to ourselves and assume we can’t do something. In my experience persistence wins much more often than raw ability…even when the going gets tough, keep focussed on your goal and work out how to get there one step at a time.

6. Manage your career in the same way you manage other big challenges at work. Gather the data, do the analysis, ask for input from people with experience and different perspectives… and be as clear sighted, focussed and determined as you are in your work.

7. Get organised. The family logistics really matter. Again, there is no right answer to this, but you can’t be too organised if you want to manage career and family. Many people swear by keeping work, school and home in a close orbit. I have never managed to achieve that but both my husband and I have turned down jobs where the logistics just didn’t work for us all. I have had the huge benefit of having children quite late, when I was already pretty senior, so I have been able to afford a lot of help. But I have also relied heavily on family and friends, especially when things go wrong. You need a fall back and a fall back to the fall back.

8. Hire people who are better than you, and who compliment your skills and experience. This means being really honest with yourself about your weaknesses. Build a team of the most talented people that you possibly can. And take pride when they are ready to move on and surpass you.

9. Don’t hide what you do to juggle. Set out your boundaries and stick to them. I enjoy the huge variety in my day that comes from juggling work and family, and I like to be always on for both. I am just as likely to interrupt an important meeting for a text from my daughter as I am to take a work call from the school hockey touchline, but that’s not for everyone. Set out how you want to work, make sure everyone around you knows, and don’t apologize for it. You will find that the more authentically you role model balancing work and family, the more people will follow your example and work out what is right for them. And you will all perform better for it.

10. Don’t worry about the guilt. It seems to be an integral part of being a parent, and especially a mum. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you work full time or parent full time, you worry that you are not getting it right. That just seems to be part of the pleasure and pain of parenthood. So, don’t beat yourself up when you succumb to a bout of guilt. Give yourself permission not to be perfect, take a breath and create some space to check in with yourself and your family, who will almost certainly tell you that you are doing brilliantly and to give yourself a break!

Baroness Dido Harding Professor Joe Harrison


1. Take on any role that you want to do, just be clear that your family comes first and that they are able to, and will support you to do the job the way that you want to do it. Understand what the compromises are likely to be, and agree them up front. If you promise to get to your children’s Lion King performance, that becomes the most important thing to do that day, bar none! Going to every assembly each term, reading in class etc etc might not get on to the list!

2. Be proud of your family at work, talk about them and ensure that people see you as a whole person and not just who you are in the “work” part of your life, most normal people are interested in you as a whole person, and it enables you to relate better to a much broader range of people in your role;

3. As a CEO every evening and weekend could be filled with “exciting opportunities” to engage with the NHS and broader local community. In my view people who have a balance in their lives, take time for themselves and their loved ones, and have interests outside of purely work are capable of making better decisions over an extended period of time within work;

4. Everyone in the world has, at some point, had to change plans because of their children/family/parents/dog/cat. Don’t beat yourself up about it when it happens, it is acceptable to run to help the people (pet!) that you love in a crisis;

5. If you are being offered an “amazing opportunity” listen to what your gut is saying about the role. The most important thing is who your boss is going to be, and the team that you will be working with. No job can survive having a bad boss or team!

6. In the same way that you want people to respect you and make sure that you can do the job, be a decent human being to everyone that you speak to and deal with. Everyone is allowed a bad day, that is what the word “sorry” was invented for, no one is too important to use it.

Joe joined Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as chief executive almost exactly five years ago.

His focus at MKUH has been on improving patient safety, experience and clinical effectiveness, which are the hospital’s three key strategic objectives.

Before joining MKUH, Joe was chief executive at Bedford Hospital. He has nearly 30 years’ experience working in acute hospitals, including in senior director roles at UCLH and Barts Health, as well as in several district general hospitals.

Joe has a particular passion for education and research and is a board member of the Oxford Academic Health Science Network (AHSN), Chair of the Clinical Research Network Partnership Board for Thames Valley, Trustee for NHS Providers and NHS Elect and also sits on a number of committees and the Council with the University of Buckingham.

Professor Joe Harrison

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Nicola is the Managing Director of RM Partners, the Cancer Alliance in west London. In 2017, she also worked as the Programme Director for the National Cancer Programme at NHS England.

Before joining RM Partners in autumn 2016, Nicola was the Director of Delivery Assurance and Business planning at NHS England, covering all of the national transformation programmes. Previously she was Director of Productivity, Innovation and Improvement at Kingston Hospital. She has significant Trust operational experience at board level, and has worked to develop new models of care across organisational boundaries, including developing a new contractual joint venture for pathology services between three Trusts.

She joined the NHS in 2003 after an early career in banking in the UK and US. She has also lived in Syria, learning Arabic and setting up health services for Iraqi refugees in Damascus.

Maintaining a work-life balance as a single parent brings its own particular complexities, and can feel incredibly lonely when there’s no one to share the ups and downs with along the way. Here are my top tips from a single mum perspective.

1. Don’t sweat the small stuff. No one cares if your house is messy, your bed isn’t made or if your kid has toast for tea because you are too tired to cook. If you can afford to outsource, do so…. if you have time (because outsourcing is work too). If it’s too much hassle to find a gardener, be at home for them to provide a quote and then at home for them to do the work, then live with the long grass. Don’t get upset that it’s longer than your neighbours’ grass and, after a long day facilitating a whole Trust CIP review, don’t then get the lawnmower out, realise a fox has chewed through the cable, put kid in car and drive to B&Q to buy new cable, change the plug, put kid to bed, mow the lawn, then cry on the sofa because you are too tired to go bed. No-one cares about your grass.

2. Listen to your body, and acknowledge when you are feeling under par. Whether it’s crashing period pains during a Board Away Day, a mouth abscess when you haven’t had time to go to the dentist, or grief after a family bereavement, don’t push on through if your body says you need to stop – particularly if you don’t have anyone else at home to look out for you. It’s also ok to tell your boss and/or team if you don’t feel 100%, and they may even be able to help. Being senior doesn’t mean you have to be seen to be infallible.

3. You take responsibility for all the decisions you make at work. As a single parent, you also take responsibility for all the decisions in the home. This is HARD (understatement of the year), lonely and frankly exhausting. If you need others to take some decisions for you, tell them.

4. Your childcare plans will fail sometimes. Have a Plan B in your head – whether it’s friends, family, a neighbour, a babysitter you trust. Plan C will no doubt be that you will run out of a Board meeting to dash to school to pick up your vomiting child, and try to deliver your presentation by phone whilst your other phone is buzzing as the school receptionist leaves numerous messages implicitly blaming you for a response time that is substantially longer than the one in the school’s “Sick Child” policy. You will have to put Plan

C into place more often than you would like. Use your Plan B as your buffer. Which leads me on to…….

5. Ask for help. Accept it when offered. You may find it in the most surprising of places. This is not weak, or a failure. If people can’t help at that moment in time, they won’t - don’t read too much into it, and don’t let it stop you asking someone else. I originally wrote “Don’t feel guilty about asking for help.” Then I decided that that was completely unhelpful as we all feel guilty about everything. Perhaps a better tip is to learn to live with the guilt. It will never go away.

6. Trust your team, and spend time listening to them and nurturing them. Recruit and value people who are different to you, who complement your skill set. Don’t bother with big networking events but do invest time in building honest and open relationships with colleagues and stakeholders. The more you trust the people you work with and the better you understand each other, the less time you will waste on petty politics and the more productive your joint work will be.

7. Let your kids help you at work. Get them involved, ask them what they think, take them round and show them what you do. They get to see that you have a whole other life and do fabulous things when you’re not with them. You get to see the NHS through their eyes, and find out what really matters to them. When things aren’t going to plan, this helps remind me why I do it all.

8. Remind yourself of all the amazing things that you achieve on a daily basis, no matter how small. As a senior leader in the NHS, people don’t often tell you when you’re doing a good job – and praise is particularly rare as a single parent. So when you lie in bed at night, don’t just list (and feel bad about) all the things that you haven’t done, but make sure you remind yourself of what you have.

9. When you see behaviours at work that make you uncomfortable, challenge them constructively, both for your own sake and for others’, perhaps more junior, who see you as a role model. Be prepared to be constructively challenged too. Things will go wrong sometimes, and you’re never too big or important to listen, acknowledge and apologise.

10. Dream big, and chase your dreams. Take risks. Have courage. And enjoy!

Nicola Hunt


1. You are governed by time, once you’ve got a kid, in a way that is entirely alien to your pre-child self. Before children you could stay late and get in early, but now your nursery shuts at 6pm and if you’re five minutes late you have to pay a fine and endure the shame of collecting your child when all the staff are standing about in their coats. If you have to leave at a certain time, be militant about planning your diary so you can go. And don’t apologise. ‘Leave loudly’ is a thing in some companies, meaning you shouldn’t slink out in shame whilst your colleagues look up to rain judgment upon you. Bellow ‘Bye, I’m going to pick up my child’ and leave confidently, possibly even righteously.

2. Other people can be hilarious can’t they? Let’s say you get in after dropping the kids off at school. ‘Afternoon’, someone will say, grinning. You’ve probably been up since 5am and got several other human beings ready for the day. You hate the person but people will always say this sort of stuff. The only thing you can do is to manage how you respond. Do this calmly and don’t just suddenly snap!

3. I believed I was the only person juggling this difficult and complex task of work and life. A colleague once told me that they felt I didn’t value their work/life balance as they didn’t have children. It was devastating to hear, but they were right. If you want people to respect your work/life balance and your time, respect theirs, do this demonstrably – advocate for others; because we should have genuinely flexible working, not just for one group of people, but for everyone.

4. Flexibility in work really should be for everyone but it so very rarely is. If you are in a position to command flexibility you are likely to be fairly senior and in the fortunate position in having a boss that recognises its benefits. If you’re that fairly senior person, become the vocal advocate for flexible working in your organization. If you’re not that fairly senior person, find one. Because they will be there – women that have gone before you have fought this fight, and they will help you.

5. You are going to feel guilty all the time about EVERYTHING. You will feel terrible about not being a good enough mother and not being a good enough employee. The guilt will sometimes just whisper in the background, but sometimes

it will thunder in your ears. You’re not doing a terrible job. Talk to someone if you’re having a really rubbish time. Guilt flourishes in silence and vanishes in speaking.

6. Every plate you’ve got is spinning in perfect synchronicity – you’re superwoman! Then one of your kids is sick. Usually this happens when you have a deadline, or meeting. But you can work remotely! If you are dialing into a conference call, make sure you are on mute as the second you say something your child will shout ‘I’ve done a POOOO’. If this happens, people on your call may have no sense of humour and may not take kindly to your lengthy explanation about how you’re up to your elbows in shit. Instead admit nothing and say, ‘I think there’s some interference on the line at your end Graeme’.

7. I’m lucky to have a boss who supports me. Unfortunately it isn’t the norm and your boss can make or break your return to work and career progression after maternity leave. Many brilliant, capable, talented women leave because they cannot make working and family life work for them. Alternatively many brilliant, capable, talented women cannot afford to not work and so carry on, overlooked, sidelined and stuck. So if you’re a boss, be a good one. If you’re a senior person in your organization call out poor behaviours and cultures that don’t support women. There are many, many brilliant, capable and talented women in the NHS who remain voiceless – speak up for them.

8. The NHS is 80% women – a phenomenal statistic that should mean the NHS is the most family friendly, flexible, feminist network of organisations in the world. It has a way to go. But for 70 years women have been lifeblood of the NHS, whilst bringing up families. There’s a great line in the book ‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’ by Allison Pearson: “The females who come after us will scarcely give us a second thought, but they will walk on our bones.” Talking about how to make things better for women; and how to support every woman in every role in the NHS is a great start to a life-changing legacy. You can create this legacy today, now, this minute on Twitter, at your next team meeting, when you see your CEO in the corridor. So what are you waiting for?

Kate has substantial experience as a communications professional and company secretary and has worked on and with boards in the acute health sector, police and criminal justice agencies, national government agencies and private companies.

Before joining Milton Keynes Hospital as director of corporate affairs with responsibility for integrated governance and assurance, membership and corporate communications, Kate spent a number of years at Bedford Hospital as associate director of corporate affairs and communications and company secretary.

Kate is passionate about staff and patient engagement, leadership, culture and transformation and about developing integrated governance systems to support the delivery of safe, effective, high quality care.

Kate Jarman

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Claire KennedyPartha has been a Consultant in Diabetes & Endocrinology at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust since 2008. He has been the Clinical Director of Diabetes from 2009-2015, being part of a multiple national award-winning department (HSJ Awards / BMJ Awards) due to its services and care provided.

One of his main areas or passion is in helping to redesign diabetes care in an attempt to integrate chronic disease management across primary and secondary care. He is the pioneer of the Super Six Diabetes Model which aims to deliver diabetes care differently. He is an avid user of social media such as (@parthaskar) to engage with patients - and been recognised as a “Social media Pioneer” by HSJ in 2014. Recent innovations have involved the Hypoglycaemia Hotline, which was recognised in the Guardian Healthcare Awards 2013.

He is also the co-creator of TAD talks (Talking About Diabetes) and the Type 1 Diabetes comic (“Origins”)- while also involved in setting up a Type 1 Diabetes information portal (T1resources.uk)

He is also Associate National Clinical Director, Diabetes with NHS England leading on developing the NHS RightCare Diabetes pathway; leading on Freestyle Libre being available on NHS tariff and helping to coordinate the development of the Diabetes “Language Matters” document

Leadership roles – at the end of the day – is also a job. Try your best, keep patient outcomes at the forefront and try to enjoy the role.

In my experience? It’s also about knowing where to draw the line. At the end of it all – it’s your friends and family who remember you the most – and it’s never a bad thing to lose sight of that either.

For what it’s worth, here are Ten Top Tips from me. Hope you find them useful!

1. Keep it simple

2. Be visible

3. Be clear in your vision

4. Be ready to change direction if wrong

5. Engage with stakeholders

6. Be ready for conflicts

7. Patient outcomes is the goal- may involve sacrificing friendships

8. Have a sense of humour

9. Never believe in your own hype

10. Have a good set of friends & family to help you chillax.

Partha Kar


Claire Kennedy

The theme of balance runs through every stage of life. As a child, my parents taught me that life is like an apple in three slices – a slice for yourself, one for your career and one for the people you love and care about and that the key to being happy is to keep those elements in balance. It is a message that I have always shared with my own teams, and have used to shape and define the culture of our organisation. I have set out below some tips I have garnered from my years of trying to do achieve balance which, for me, is very much a personal journey – the tips may or may not talk to anyone directly; however, they are ideas that have opened up, for me, the permission to behave in ways that have allowed me to achieve some semblance of my own personal balance (most of the time!).

1. Balance is a team game: balance is about sharing the strain, whether that is personally, professionally or interpersonally (or usually across all three). Asking for and giving help, support, space and time are all things we can do for each other – I have learnt that the more you connect with colleagues, the easier it becomes to develop creative solutions that enrich everyone. You don’t have to do it all on your own.

2. Take the time to know yourself: know what is important to you (and what isn’t!). Know what success means to you, and recognise that it may look very different to other people. Create a shared perspective on what can be achieved and how you are able to do it. Recognise that you will rarely, if ever, be able to succeed alone and that bringing together the right combination of skills is both about awareness of your own strengths and having the confidence to fill gaps with the strengths of your colleagues.

3. Run your own race: often, life falls out of balance not because we want it to, but because external factors impede our ability to see the wood from the trees. Keep a focus on what you are trying to do, your own team and colleagues and your own reality, rather than comparing yourself to others whose success might be very different.

4. Mistakes are how we learn: none of us get it right all the time. The question is not ‘how can I get through this without ever making a mistake?’; it should be about trying things out, learning what works and what doesn’t and then moving on to try again, guilt-free!

5. Your time is the most valuable asset you have: If there are things you don’t want / need to do, outsource them. If you have an hour, tell people you have an hour and use it well. If you are being asked to be in two places at one, make a choice and communicate the choice. The laws of time and space won’t change, regardless of how stressed and guilty you feel.

6. Prioritisation is the key to survival! Make a list; be honest about what matters, what needs to be done by you, what others could help with and prioritise – that means that something might not get done but the reality is that, if there is too much on your list, things won’t get done anyway – prioritisation is about managing that process and making sure that the most important things do get done.

7. Nothing lasts for ever. This particularly relates to some advice I was given when pregnant for the first time, that the 5 years when the children are very small is a tiny fragment of your career, and a unique experience from all perspectives – the joy, the exhaustion, the daily milestones and the feeling of being constantly ‘needed’ by everyone changes and develops. That moment is one that creates real challenges and opportunities in terms of identity and purpose, and is particularly complex. Accept that complexity and work through it – re-evaluate what matters; prioritise; work out your parameters and revisit them regularly.

8. Find your joy and nurture it. Whatever it is, it is what you need and is therefore the most precious thing you have – if you invest in it when you want to, it will sustain you when you need it.

9. Don’t worry about what people think of your choices. The only people that matter are those who are in your own personal ‘cake’ – your colleagues, your family and friends and they are part of your balance. You can’t please everyone all of the time, but you can make sure that you have made the best choices you can and that people know and understand what you are doing.

10. The hours feel long but the years fly by: exercise, get fresh air, take the time to ‘be’. Keep perspective. To bring the best of yourself to your work and your life, you have to look after yourself. You are responsible for your own balance, and for teaching those around you how to achieve the same for themselves.

Claire Kennedy is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of specialist public sector management consultancy, PPL. She is a Board Member at the New Local Government Network, Board Member and former Vice President of the UK Management Consultancies Association, and Fellow of the RSA. Claire both co-founded PPL and gave birth to her two daughters in eighteen months between 2007 and 2008, and has been working out how to find balance ever since!

Claire Kennedy

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Sarah-Jane MarshBob is a Consultant General Paediatrician at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust who also trained as an educationalist alongside his postgraduate paediatric training in London. Bob has a strong interest in individual and systems learning, behavioural insights work and leadership development. In 2010 he set up the Paired Learning programme, which has now been adopted by a number of organisations across the UK.

Since 2015, through his Associate Medical Director role, Bob has been leading an ambitious project to create a culture of continuous quality improvement programme across Imperial.Bob is also a strong advocate for child health and co-leads the Connecting Care for Children (CC4C) integrated child health programme in North West London www.cc4c.imperial.nhs.uk, which is focused on developing whole population integrated care models of service and training within paediatrics and child health.

1. Try to find work that gives you a real sense of purpose – I have felt that doing something that really matters to me, has strongly offset the impact it has on everything else in my life. My on-calls as a paediatrician would be a good example of that. Although in many ways I would rather not be working over a weekend or over-night, the role is a tremendous privilege and in that way compensates to a degree for things I might be missing out on at home.

2. Related to the first point, it has always helped my children to know and understand what my work is and what aspects of it might be challenging me. Where I have been grappling with something very difficult or sad, they are brilliant at spotting it, and their support and concern has been something that has meant a huge amount to me.

3. Spend time with diverse, open and imaginative colleagues – much of my energy comes from the people who I spend time with, and so investing in those relationships is crucial. A trivial but important example of this would be sitting down once a week as a team and having lunch together.

4. Keep a strong focus on learning – the more experienced I get the more I realise how little I know. An approach to work where there is a continuous feeling of learning is a very positive one.

5. Be open and honest with people about what ways of working are best for you. An example of this is that, if it works for them, I would generally prefer an evening call after my children have got to bed, than something at the end of the day that stopped me from getting home to see them.

6. Find clever ways to get something out of your commute. I have always admired people who can work or read well as they journey in and out of work. For me, this journey is almost always on a bicycle, and it gives me some fresh air, some thinking time, and a chance to get work in or out of my head…depending on whether I am coming or going.

7. Before taking on yet more work, or getting involved in another project, have a think about how this might synergise and support existing work, or with other things going on in your life. If it really has no synergies at all then it may well be something to say no thanks to.

8. Through my improvement work, I have learnt a lot about the value of ‘relational meetings’ where the focus is far away from the typical transactional discussions that seem to dominate healthcare, and more on building relationships and trust.

9. Some of the most impactful research I have ever read is around the importance of people feeling ‘psychologically safe’ in their work. A key leadership role is in creating this psychological safety, and my experience is that where it unequivocally exists then work is a great place to be.

10. Finally, I am not sure that ‘work-life balance’ is a particularly helpful phrase – my view is that you can’t quite have it all – you can get close to it, but the key is to have an honest (with yourself, family, friends and colleagues) reflective approach to the ups and downs of work, and how that fits in with your life in a positive and negative way. This needs constant review and recalibration.

Dr Bob Klaber


1. Be ruthless with your diary - time is your currency so don’t waste a minute of it. Just because the person who previously did your role did this meeting or that meeting, it doesn’t mean that you have to - and if you take on Chairing something, for example, always drop Chairing something else to compensate for it. If you can’t find anything to give up, then you don’t want to Chair the new thing enough.

2. Have clear diary rules about the evenings you will work and those you won’t, and stick to them at all costs. If people want you enough they will work around you. If you are doing a school drop off or pick up cement it in there. Likewise don’t miss Nativities or Phonics Classes or whatever - colour code important family events in your diary and let everyone know they are a red line.

3. If you can’t do something due to a family commitment, or purely because you want to be with your children - don’t pretend or waffle, just say it. Its liberating. My inspiration here is Samantha Cameron who once said at a Reception I was attending “I’m going now as I’d like to put my children to bed tonight”. Who is going to argue with that?!

4. Surrender to an amazing Executive Assistant. Not only will they run your diary and manage you in every way - but they can also remove some of the inevitable guilt of saying no by taking the “polite decline” decisions for you. My EA and I have various code words so we know what the other is thinking, usually in real time.

5. It takes a family to raise a child so don’t think its all on you. Partners, grandparents, siblings etc can all work together as a team. A routine is important in this, and the diary rules help everyone to know ‘the pattern of a standard week’.

6. Don’t waste too much time at Conferences or Dinners or Networking Events. The odd one yes, but choose wisely and because you are confident it will help you/your organisation. Don’t just go to things to ‘be seen’ - and don’t be fooled by people who do the whole “x is close to y” thing, as the majority of name droppers are usually the least influential people.

7. Take your home family with you to work, and your work family with you to home. My children love going to events at the hospitals and hearing about what I’ve done to ‘help the poorly women and children’ - and I talk about my children and family at work all the time.

8. Surround yourself with people who compensate for your weaknesses, and never worry about something on your own. If the latter does occur, make sure you share the worry within 24 hours - that way you won’t sit at home/lie awake fretting - and look after your team as your number one priority. Remember they are your work family - the more you look after them, the more they will look after you.

9. Ensure there is a common understanding of what you need to be contacted for “out of hours”, and what can wait until the next working day. The reality is there is very little that is genuinely urgent. Its all about letting go and trusting your team.

10. Only do jobs you love and that make you happy. If you’re not happy (at least 7 out of 10!), keep going to pay the bills, but look for something else that reignites your passions. You spend too much time at work not to be happy there.

Sarah-Jane is Chief Executive Officer of Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Chair of the NHS England Maternity Transformation Programme.

Sarah-Jane joined the NHS via the Graduate Management Scheme, holding various roles in primary and secondary care and at the Department of Health, before promotion to Director of Planning and Productivity at Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust.

Appointed Chief Operating Officer at Birmingham Children’s Hospital in December 2007, and Chief Executive Officer in March 2009, the Trust has been under her leadership for over nine years and was named ‘Provider Trust of the Year’ by the Health Service Journal in 2015, and rated Outstanding by the CQC in February 2017.

In 2015, Sarah-Jane took on the additional role of Chief Executive of Birmingham Women’s NHS Foundation Trust, before going on to integrate the two Trusts to create the first Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust in Europe, just 18 months later. She also led the development of an innovative new mental health partnership for 0-25 year olds in the city – Forward Thinking Birmingham, the first of its type in the NHS.

Sarah-Jane is also Chair of the NHS England Maternity Transformation Programme Board, which aims to make maternity care across England safer, and give women greater control and choice. Her passions are exceeding the expectations of patients and families, and making Birmingham Women’s and Children’s the very best place to work and be cared for.

Sarah-Jane Marsh

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Jane PirieClare is joint Chief Executive of Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust and Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.A registered nurse, Clare also has a business degree and has worked in the NHS for more than 25 years.

As Chief Executive and Accountable Officer for the Trust, Clare carries full responsibility for the Trust’s performance, forward planning and leadership of the Executive Team and Clinical Directors.

1. I have found it unhelpful and unrealistic to separate work and life. When the children were young I would often leave at 5 or pop out to a school play knowing that I would work again later in the evening when they were asleep. Blending work and home can make life more manageable and allow you to do the important things.

2. Set your parameters before starting if possible. I blocked my diary and don’t allow appointments before 9 or after 5.30 unless I agree.

3. Restrict diary access to one or 2 individuals and don’t allow others to enter meetings

4. Don’t allow flattery to persuade you to take on roles that you don’t think you are right for. Trust your instinct and stick to your guns.

5. Consider the length of commute you can withstand. Living within 20 minutes of the hospital when my children were young was invaluable.

6. Build a strong and diverse team and invest in a deputy. Allow them to grow in the role and to share the load. Recognise they won’t stay forever but that you will develop a reputation for being a boss who allows others to shine and develop.

7. Support your team and back them up but deal with performance concerns decisively so as not to drag down the team or create disharmony

8. Be clear about what only you can do and delegate effectively. Thinking time is legitimate and as necessary as doing time. Don’t feel guilty about taking time out. Wean yourself off the adrenaline rush of crisis management and problem solving.

9. Spend time each day walking through the site, talking to people you meet, even on those days you can’t spend time on the floor. Take the opportunity to go to people rather than them coming to you.

10. Network/attend conferences judiciously. I rarely go to evening functions unless something that I think will really add value. Learn the art of saying no and not feeling uncomfortable about it.

Clare Panniker


I started my working career at a charity, RADAR (Royal Association of Disability and Rehabilitation) as PA to the Chairman and most notably worked on the introduction of the disability key scheme followed by 15 years at ITV as Executive Assistant to the Managing Director. As part of a work life balance decision, with two small children, I gave up the daily commute and moved to West Hertfordshire Hospital NHS Trust where my career in the NHS started 15 years ago. I joined the acute paediatric service as Paediatric Administrator, moving on to be Head of Office for the Chief Executive before arriving at NHSE as Business Manager. I am passionate about improving the care and service for patients.

I am a proud parent of two and having spent the last 20 years juggling work and home life now spend my time planning holidays and tending to my allotment, when I’m not working!

So now you have read all of these great top ten tips, and great advice and tips they are, remember, behind every great wo/man there is a PA/Exec Assistant.

1. So now that you have your great PA/Exec Assistant in place, nurture the relationship – they are going to be your wingman!

2. They need to know you better than you know yourself!

3. But remember they are not psychic! Transparency and clarity are essential.

4. Once you have set your working day allowing for childcare, drop offs, pick-ups, sports days, assemblies – stick to them and make no exceptions – not only for your own sake, but have you considered the hours that go into making those diaries work!

5. Take a moment – do you really need coffee with that person that has randomly dropped you a line? Great if you do, but remember that next week/month when you question why you have no breathing space in your diary!

6. Yes, it’s boring but diary meetings are invaluable!

7. No, of course you’re not consistently inconsistent!

8. And yes, your PA will need the patience of a saint!

9. Most importantly, remember to be able laugh together – otherwise it’s just not worth it!

10. = Balance!

Jane Pirie

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1. You cannot be brilliant at everything – accept it… Just because some people give the impression of being uber amazing super-women, that’s only because they have lots of help and support or have come to terms with having a messy house!

2. Accept help – don’t try and do it all yourself – whether that’s offers of free help from loved ones or just accept that you have to pay someone else to do stuff for you (domestic chores are top on this list!).

3. Set boundaries to protect yourself and your loved ones: for me over the years, only doing whole days in clinical practice was one boundary that really helped me – I saw so many people struggle with doing a ‘half day’ but then not leaving the surgery until 3pm then run to another job which they then felt guilty about… at least doing a long day in surgery meant that everyone knew I was not available in my other roles on that day.

4. Make time for those you really care about – when the job is over you still need your loved ones, your family and friends – whether that’s date night with your partner or going out of the way to turn up at family reunions or just sending them a message to say that you love them. They know you are busy – so making the effort is really appreciated.

5. You have to give something up, to take on anything extra… if you are already busy then just piling on more stuff, however fascinating and exciting, will just lead to stress and doing some things badly. Everyone has a different limit – get to know yours.

6. Make time for fun and take proper holidays – if you are a workaholic, this is especially important – schedule it if necessary but ensure that you do stuff that clears your head and lifts your spirits. You will be much more productive when you get back to work if you are refreshed and happy.

7. Get to know yourself properly – that may be by doing a leadership course or psychometric testing with feedback or by having some life coaching – but understand what makes you tick, what energises and exhausts you, what you are especially good and what you need to work at, and what areas you will never be good at.

8. Try to work in balanced teams – if you have any control over it, then use the information about personalities and strengths to ensure teams you build a balanced team around you. If you all think and work the same way, you will continue to do the same stuff and won’t push boundaries. You need grit in oysters to make pearls – you need people in groups who think differently to break out of moulds.

9. Put it in a box and let it go… when bad stuff happens, that’s ok, its life, once the acute phase of being upset is over, make a conscious effort to stop dwelling on it, don’t let it rule you – for me I visualise a cardboard box, putting the bad thing in it, closing the flaps on the box and putting it on a shelf and then pushing it to the back of the shelf… it’s there if I need to refer to it, but it’s not interfering with my day-to-day life.

10. Play nicely – being respectful and courteous is always worthwhile – especially when others are losing their heads and having tantrums. It doesn’t mean being a doormat, it certainly doesn’t mean agreeing with things that you doing believe in and never means compromising your values and principles – but developing maintaining that professional mask is a really powerful tool.

Helen is chair of council of the Royal College of General Practitioners, serving as political and public head of the college through to 2019.

A graduate of St George’s Medical School, London, Helen quickly determined on a career in general practice. Having successfully completed her GP training in inner-city Birmingham, she took up post as a part-time principal at The Cloisters Medical Practice and simultaneously started at the University of Birmingham as an academic fellow. She has held roles in clinical practice, research and teaching that she continues to combine to the present time.

Having completed a PhD, Helen accepted the post of clinical director of the Primary Care Trials Unit at the University of Birmingham, where, since 2010, she has been head of the academic GP trainee programme and head of academic community-based medicine teaching across the whole of undergraduate medical teaching.

Prof. Helen Stokes-Lampard


1. People can have very different priorities and opinions - we all know this. But that doesn’t necessarily stop us feeling judged when they’re aimed at us. Work through your own priorities for yourself and fight hard to hold to these, even if sometimes your fighting against yourself.

2. Don’t let yourself be distracted no matter how much the opinion of others might sting in the moment. Being told by someone on a career break that they’d rather be a mother than a role model took a while to shake off - but I know what’s important to me as a parent, and how I’m making that work.

3. It really does take a village (or a network) to raise a child. I can see the richness that others have brought to my kids’ lives - what they’ve learned, and how they’ve experienced things outside what I might have shown them. And it goes both ways. When my kids were younger other parents helped out with school trips, swimming lessons and rehearsals. As they’ve grown older I’ve been able to reciprocate with things like work experience opportunities, help with CVs and drafting statements for Uni applications.

4. Surround yourself with amazing people who excel in what they do and know things that you don’t. My absolute best experiences have been (and are now) working with people who help me startle my own thinking, and push me on what’s possible. And are then also part of my support system in making things happen.

5. Be ruthless about protecting your time. When my children were young I left early one night a week so I could collect them from after school club. Sometimes it was possible to do this more often but I protected that one night. Even if someone else could do it for me I didn’t let it slide.

6. Understand where you get your energy from; what brings you joy. Which people and situations enthuse you and keep you motivated. Make sure that when you look at your diary for the week there is at least some of this type of time included. Otherwise you’ll spend the week doing things and meeting people who at best don’t add, and at worst drain.

7. Know your purpose, your values and what you stand for. Don’t let yourself be distracted from this. “FOMO” (fear of missing out) isn’t just a teenager thing. Don’t be seduced by invites to speak or attend events just because others will be be going. Your time, attention, focus are all valuable resources to be carefully marshalled - always strive to connect activity to purpose.

8. Kindness is important. Kindness to others, but also to yourself. Don’t forget that when trying to work through everything you need to do.

9. Don’t let yourself be dragged in to other’s patterns of work. If you work best late at night, 7am breakfast meetings are simply going to stretch your day beyond anything productive. And consider the unintended consequences of your own work patterns - your behaviours can set expectations regardless of how often you say to others they don’t need to work the way you do.

10. If you can’t bring yourself to pay others to take on some of your household tasks, you might need to adjust your tolerance for things like untidiness. I have a weird reluctance to have someone in to clean my house (which I’m desperately trying to get over!!) so I’ve learned to be comfortable with messiness!

Carolyn Wilkins OBE

Carolyn is currently the Chief Executive at Oldham Council and the Accountable Officer for Oldham CCG. She has taken forward a significant programme of growth and reform through the Co-operative agenda.

She undertakes the lead chief executive role for Greater Manchester on a range of issues including City Green. She is also leading the development of a Greater Manchester Leadership and Workforce Development Framework and lead chief executive for Population Health. In addition, she is the Chair of the Oldham Maggie’s Fundraising Board and is currently a panel member on an independent inquiry into Civil Society. She has significant public sector experience including time as a Chief Executive at Rossendale Borough Council where she led an improvement programme.

Carolyn is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is a member of the MJ Editorial Board and was a member of the 2016 Guardian Public Leaders Board. Carolyn has held a wide range of other roles in her career including as a Non-Executive Director for Society of Local Authority Chief Executive (SOLACE), as governor at both Oldham and Accrington & Rossendale Colleges and as an Associate Fellow at Warwick Business School. Carolyn has an MA in Literature with the Open University and a Masters in Public Administration from Warwick Business School. Carolyn was awarded an OBE in June 2016 for her services to local government. In March 2017 she was selected for inclusion on the 2017 Northern Power Women Power List.

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