Are coaching and mentoring skills crucial for ambulance service managers? A personal reflection

As readers will gather from considering this paper, this article represents a personal reflection following my participation in a Chartered Management Institute (CMI) Level 5 Coaching and Mentoring programme. It is not necessarily my intention to add academic rigour but to provoke and stimulate further discussion among colleagues in the paramedic profession. Personally, within UK ambulance Trusts, I feel the primary reason to firstly acquire, and then cultivate, coaching and mentoring skills is to develop good leaders who can fundamentally change the way in which organisations function. We need change, and while I understand that organisations will always need doers, developing good leaders will motivate, change culture, and ultimately produce sustainable results. According to Lee (2003: 7): ‘Coaching is arguably the most powerful method for developing a manager's capacity for leadership’ (Lee, 2003). This statement must not be lost on ambulance traditionalists who can often display a preference for autocracy. Interestingly, I have seen many traditional ambulance managers benefit considerably from those ‘modernists’ who are willing to offer the hand of support.