Paramedic leaders: past, present and future

All too often, we consider leaders to be those whom we ‘look up to’ or those ‘heroes’ that have been placed upon a pedestal. However, we often forget the people who are quietly making things happen—leaders in their own right—we only ever notice those that shout about their endeavours.

There are thousands of definitions of leadership; but in its basic form, it's about getting someone to do something, because they want to do it. It's about subtly influencing a person or group of people, so that they want to achieve your goal. In this form, it sounds mischievous but this is why we often don't see the leaders. If you've been influenced to do something, you now want to do it—you don't see the influence. Clever!

Yet it's those people that influence us that improve our working lives. We can sometimes forget to thank them, or not even realise how they're helping. Leadership has been a consistent presence in the ambulance services throughout the past and present, and will also continue in the future. As simple as this sounds, it isn't—you do need coaching and education to enhance your skills as a leader and manager. We can use the analogy of a sports person: like them, we only get better with training, practice, education and coaching.