Congratulations to all the enthusiastic students who took part in our 2024 Future Leaders Programmes. We have just completed our annual week-long full-time programmes at Manawa involving over 20 final-year health students. Students came from a range of disciplines including medical, nursing, social work, clinical psychology, osteopathy, health sciences, physiotherapy, pathology research, and public health.
The students were encouraged to explore their leadership potential, to question how best to adopt leadership roles, to challenge the status quo and to recognise that leadership is vital at all levels, in all parts of our health system.
The programme involves input from health leaders sharing their experiences, technical aspects of leadership, plus presentations from futurists and business leaders. There is continuous two-way interaction during the week – the programme is designed to be experiential.
The entire course is embedded in the recognition of equity, with particular emphasis on Māori and learnings from a Māori perspective.
The programmes concluded with the students presenting their individual ideas on leadership, diversity and inclusion, and how they were going to ‘nudge the system’. These were all incredibly impressive, honest and insightful.
Feedback from some of the students was that the course was ‘life changing’, ‘ I learnt that I don’t have to change myself to become a good leader, I just have to learn how to apply my strengths in a way that works for me’.
We wish the students all the best finishing their studies, and in their future roles within our health system.