Systems Thinking for the Middle Manager and Aspiring Leader in Public Health

Abstract

The staff of a state public health leadership institute used a national leadership competency set as guidance for its curriculum. An important competency of that and several other national competency sets is systems thinking. Efforts to provide useful training in systems thinking were only partially successful. Literature searches revealed only one successful application in practice, even though surveys find that systems thinking continues to be a critical training need. During its final year, the staff of the institute developed a framework for a personal system thinking approach, which was favorably received by institute participants. The great majority of the participants in the institute were middle managers who were expected to develop their leadership skills and advance in their careers. This paper presents a refined version of the systems thinking framework. Among the advantages, it provides are: it requires no expenditure other than time, it requires no consultants, it can be tailored to the needs of any worker, it can be revisited as often as desirable, it recognizes that conflict and competition are ever-present in organizations and agencies, and it a can provide a roadmap for personal leadership action.