Reflexive Leadership for Improved Team Adaption and Burnout Prevention (20 August 2025)
In the post-pandemic world, we have become dynamically aware of the public need for equity, inclusion, and diversity in community and workplace settings. In the UK, Professor Michael West and his team of multidisciplinary researchers have, in recent years, introduced “compassionate leadership” via the King’s Fund organisation across many NHS bodies. While this is an excellent step to initiate kind interaction among our healthcare workers, we contend that individual personalities and complex teaming dynamics in traditionally hierarchical situations go beyond the case of compassion or lack thereof. In this CPD, we support diverse leadership styes (as well as compassionate leadership) and how individuals/teams can complement one another. We draw on our expertise in special educational needs, disability awareness, and the significance of utilising team reflexivity in collaboration.
We address the problems of agility and flexibility by re-orienting participants on team adaption to change, helping them to effectively review their own leadership skill sets and styles, a process which is termed “reflexivity” in literature related to team development. We offer creatively challenging practices around socially constructed ideas of favoured employees and review the suitability of many outdated practices such as prevalence of dated psychological scales such as those labelling individuals as “Least Preferred Co-worker” (LPC). While exercise-heavy, we also raise awareness of ideas behind practices, building on social safety theories, Conservation of Resources Theory (COR), Contingency theories of leadership and more developed models of Effort-Recovery Theory (Meijman & Mulder, 1998).
Upon completion of this CPD, participants will take away different theory and practice-focused tools to challenge pre-conceived ideas of organisational and individual poor performance while being empowered to challenge favouritism principles in the workplace. They will be able to address key challenges from various new lenses in collaboration together or individually and at any stage of teaming up.
Learning outcomes
- Explore and evaluate how diverse leadership styles and practices can promote team reflexivity and organisational outcomes due to improved team practices and collaboration
- Research and implement best practice according to current govt guidelines to empower disabled and/or neurodivergent colleagues during team establishment and team development stages
- Survey new indicators for implementing compassionate high-performance attributes in leadership models to challenge contemporary societal constructs that are inflexible
- Adopt multidimensional and collaborative behaviours and growth mindsets to sensitively respond to socially established and emergent issues in workplace cultures
- Use compassionate leadership alongside team reflexivity (review and adapt) to minimise the negative impacts of seemingly tick-box exercises
- Adapt and employ multidimensional approaches to critically inform workplace practices of leadership and team formation
- Employ intergroup bias elimination practices to create sustainable and realistically inclusive teams
- Reconfigure best practice by exploring current models of burnout prevention in literature related to large and mid-ranging size organisations
- Try new leadership lenses to address team collaboration before inciting inclusion as non-collaborative team reflexivity eliminates equitable outcomes and negatively impacts organisational deliverables
- Formulate new team review methodologies which will cater for situational changes at pace
- Utilise multilevel and mixed-method toolkits to align leadership styles and team capability to review and adapt (reflexivity)
Is this course right for me?
The learning is recommended for newly appointed clinicians, occupational psychologists, general clinically oriented staff who face challenging aspects of leadership styles and team development either in their own profession or in areas where they support groups and individuals. We also invite a wide-ranging professional audience as both established scholars, early careers and those from industries other than healthcare and psychology (and academe) can benefit. While frontline healthcare teams can benefit remarkably, so could colleagues in the hospitality industries specifically those working in professions that are psychologically categorised as “highly emotionally laboured”.This is an advantage to our training and facilitation as we can deliver for those from all levels in emotionally demanding jobs by adapting our training and facilitation to their environmental and team needs.
Webinar presenters
Ian Schermbrucker & Maryam Farahani
Ian Schermbrucker and Maryam Farahani are co-authors and co-designers of cross-disciplinary publications, lectures, and workshops spanning over 20 years of experience in national and international academic and educational environments. They deliver content which can reach a diverse community of adult and professional learners specifically enabling neurodivergent colleagues across Higher Education and
Healthcare. They have extensive teaching, coaching, and group facilitation experience, and they have so far contributed to the learning communities in North-West England by empowering good practice and reaching to diverse groups of learners in the UK Higher Education, international learners, and adult lifelong learners as well as professionals in external organisations like NHS. They both design and deliver diverse training in relation to educational psychology, psychology of leadership and leader styles, team development, conflict resolution, drawing on psychology, aesthetics, philosophy, history, ethics, the arts & narratology.
Pricing
Price: £87.50 (+ VAT)
Members: £52.50 (+ VAT)
In addition to the site policies this course is subject to additional terms and conditions.
Booking on behalf of an organisation?
If you or your colleagues are looking to book onto this course as a group you can make savings by booking ten or more places. To find out more about our packages contact cpd@bps.org.uk
Invoicing
If your organisation prefers invoicing over online payment that's no problem. We can invoice you for 5 or more purchases or if your purchase is for more than £250.
In order to request a quote for five or more learners, please email cpd@bps.org.uk. If you are looking to book for fewer than 5 learners please proceed directly to requesting an invoice by completing the invoice request form.
To request an invoice please complete this form. We also provide guidance to support this process. Please note, to raise an invoice you will need to provide a Purchase Order. Once the invoice has been paid we will provide your learners with details of how to access their learning.
Contact
This webinar is provided by BPS Professional Practice and Development. You can contact us at cpd@bps.org.uk