Yorkshire and the Humber Good Practice Portal

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Within the large and challenging field of diversity and inclusion, Innov8 is concerned with leaders and leadership development and, for the moment, has a particular focus on ethnicity.

Innov8 began by asking why we had so few senior leaders from a BME background on the Boards of our organisations despite the significant and vital contribution of BME staff across our services and throughout our history. We believed by understanding the reasons better we would learn how to make a difference wherever we lack diversity of any nature.

Our approach and the Innov8 name

Firstly, we recognise there are many motivations for diversity and inclusion in the NHS; our values, our duties as a public service and our legal requirements being just three. In addition, Innov8 has a vision of how diversity and inclusion is essential to transform organisational performance required to meet our ‘better for less’ ambitions of QIPP.  This is our innovation vision….

……to create a more effective, diverse leadership that is better equipped to realise and respond to 21st Century NHS opportunities and challenges

Our understanding of the drivers for equality, diversity and inclusion and why this must be a priority for the NHS is summarised here

Secondly, our approach has been to reframe the question of diversity. This move from a deficit perspective; that somehow aspiring BME leaders are lacking in some way, to a positive perspective; what must organisations and existing senior leaders do differently to recognise, utilise and reward the many talented aspiring BME leaders in our workforce.

We have adopted the term Different Leaders from research into the Factor 8TM leadership model of the 8 key leadership attributes essential for successful leadership across multicultural environments.  Different Leaders are…..

…BME leaders who achieve their own career goals and draw on their ethnic and cultural diversity to bring added value to their organisation. Typically they posses the Factor 8 competencies which help them to progress to senior levels.

Innov8 is about developing individuals and organisations. As the name suggests, as a network we are able to experiment and innovate new approaches to leadership development and also learn from the innovations of others within the NHS and from commercial organisations and from the international research community. To do this, Innov8 operates as an alliance of individuals who offer their personal contributions and their connection to other networks, forums, professional bodies, campaign groups etc. Our work, our goals, our frustrations and our achievements are owned by all members of the Innov8 Alliance and their organisations.

'Leadership Fish' How Innov8 Leadership Opportunities Fit Together

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