Leading change with diverse stakeholders

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Abstract

The shift to holistic approaches to managing wildlife health, and the complex landscape of partners and stakeholders, has led to a focus on the development of leadership skills in addition to technical expertise. This chapter introduces key elements and core skills for successful cross-sectoral and transdisciplinary leadership that will help wildlife health practitioners effectively lead change toward integrated, mutually beneficial health outcomes for all sectors. Leading change benefits from having good individual leadership skills, including emotional intelligence or the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. Driving multi-sectoral change is facilitated by wildlife health professionals becoming champions for change and being empowered to form and lead teams and participate effectively on governance structures such as interagency committees or working groups. Finally, the four main elements in leading change are envisioning the future state, engaging key stakeholders and coalition building, identifying barriers and breaking down resistance to change, and institutionalizing change. Effective leadership can be enabled by being open to new ideas, constantly questioning the effectiveness of one’s approach, and a commitment to lifelong learning. Application of these leadership skills and approaches can help effect change, resulting in improved wildlife population health.

Publication type Book chapter
Publication Subtype Book Chapter
Title Leading change with diverse stakeholders
Chapter 22
DOI 10.1007/978-3-030-90510-1_22
Year Published 2022
Language English
Publisher Springer Link
Contributing office(s) National Wildlife Health Center
Description 11 p.
Larger Work Type Book
Larger Work Subtype Monograph
Larger Work Title Wildlife population health
First page 227
Last page 237
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