Sarah Gibbs

Helen Brown
Community Health
Artifact 1- E. Portfolio

Leadership for a Better Community Video Summary

I chose to watch this video on Public Health Leadership because I felt that it pertained to
the competency Leadership and Systems Thinking. This video taught me how to not only be a
strong leader but how to be a strong leader in public health areas. People who have to use
systems thinking to create policy change, educate the public or analyze our world statistical
data, all must be good leaders to make strong beneficial changes. This video taught me how to
incorporate the leadership qualities I have that I like with the 6 qualities that are defined as
qualities of a good leader. The 6 qualities of a good leader in the video are Integrity, High
emotional intelligence, Adaptive, Trustworthy, Constituency and Communication. Integrity is
the base of the pyramid because it is the most important. Leaders must be true to themselves if
they can be found trustworthy by other people. Leaders must have high emotional intelligence,
so they can show emotion and control their emotion. Emotions are an important part of
connecting with followers. Leaders must be adaptive to changes in their field, their followers,
and the world they live in. Constituency is important for followers, so they can get comfortable
and know how the leader will respond to situations. This means that leaders cannot change
their mind on a whim or be overly moody. Communication is essential to all relationships in life
but especially a leader. You must be able to pick up on social ques, communicate your ideas and
have people feel at ease communicating with you.
In this video I also learned about the goals and process of being a leader. Leaders must
act with the intention to influence those around them in effort to achieve your common goals.
Leaders must treat their position as an interactive process where they can influence and be
influenced by their followers. A leader must also know what power they have in their position.
There are six types of power: Referent power which is followers identify with the leader, expert
power where the leader is competent in the area of focus, legitimate power where the leader
hold a statue or position of authority, reward power where the leader has the ability to reward
the followers and lastly Coercive power where the leader has the capacity to punish the
follower. I think that for public health leadership you must have a small amount of all 6 powers
to be effective but have an emphasis in referent and expert power. To lead on serious public
health topics, you must be competent in your field and be able to identify with people for the
common goal.
The second part of this lecture on public health leadership was the use of systems
thinking. You must be able to collaborate with multiple individuals to create models and
systems to be put into place. After watching a lesson on systems thinking I understood very well
why leaders must be able to use this kind of thinking. They must know the event, be able to
identify other events that share the same pattern and be able to create a structured plan of
action to deal with this plan. In this video and my lesson on systems thinking they talked so
much about going back through each step of systems thinking and seeing if you could have any
other opinions involved which I believe is really important to have a well thought out plan.
 The final part of this video was making a plan of action. When a leader is making a plan
of action in public health, they must ensure that it incorporates all three core functions. They
must use Assessment to establish an issue, goal or objective. They must use Public Policy to
incorporate team building, values, goals and shared motivations. The last of the three functions
a leader must use is Assurance. Leaders must make tasks according to the goals and values of
the group. The have to assure that these goals are being met in a timely, ethically and cost-
effective way. These three core functions all feedback and interlink with each other to create an
effective plan made by an effective leader.
Through this lesson I saw how so many aspects of public health tie into being a good
leader. All semester we have been learning different competencies and programs in public
health, all of which are led by a leader. Being a leader in public health is more than just leading
a group because public health actions affect the whole population and the future of our
children.
NOTES ON THE VIDEO:

 3 core function- assessment, policy development and assurance

 Goal of leadership- bring together different complementary constituencies for a
concerted action in supporting the missions of the organization. This definition is
how to lead change
 Leadership is an interactive process where leaders and followers action influence
and impact each other
 Leaders act w intention to influence someone else in effort to achieve a common
goal.
 Power:
o Referent power- followers identify w leader through common interest-
fans
o Expert power- followers perception of the leader is competency -tour
guide
o Legitimate power- statue or position of authority- judge
o Reward power- someone who has the capacity to provide reward- boss
giving you a bonus
o Coercive power- one person has the capacity to punish the follower-
coach punish a player
 Leaders must have art and science skills
o Interpersonal relationships
o Timing
o Intuition
o Technical skills
o Analytical skills
o Expertise on topic
o Systems thinking- taking all science skills and seeing how they are
interconnected
 6 characteristics of successful leaders- top to bottom
o Communication
o Constituency- don’t change decisions on a whim, not moody
o Trustworthy
o Adaptive
o High emotional intelligence- connect with people/empathetic
o Integrity- most important
 Shared vision with people they are serving
 Use systems thinking
o Events patterns structure
o Continually analyze your work and results to see if you could have more
partners involved. Look for more opinions on the topic.
 Make an action plan- each core function feeds back to the other core function
o Assessment- establish goals and objective
o Public policy- incorporate team building, visions, values,
o Assurance- make tasks according to goals and values, are goals being
met, cost effective