Leadership Horizons
This podcast aims to help leaders understand current and future leadership trends and encourage leaders to explore their horizons and understand the skills that will help them become even more successful moving forward.
Welcome to Leadership Horizons, where we explore leadership at its most transformative through two unique perspectives. I am Lois Burton, an executive coach and leadership development specialist and I've witnessed first hand how great leadership can transform organizations across sectors - from global corporations to public services, from manufacturing to the arts.
"Each week, I'll bring you either an in-depth conversation with a visionary leader who's redefining what's possible..."
"...or be inviting you to join me for focused explorations of critical leadership themes, where I'll share proven strategies and insights from my years of leadership development experience and research."
"Leadership Horizons, helping you to lead beyond boundaries -- Because the future of leadership knows no bounds. I'm looking forward to you joining me there"
Leadership Horizons
Dr Lloyd Gregory Shares His Leadership Insights
The power of collaboration lies at the heart of transformative leadership, and Dr. Lloyd Gregory's approach offers a masterclass in building partnerships that create lasting value. As Director of the Joint Research Office for King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, Lloyd brings unique perspective on uniting different organizational cultures toward common goals.
Lloyd's ten-point framework for effective collaboration provides practical wisdom that any leader can apply. Beginning with trust as the foundation, he outlines how transparent communication, balanced leadership approaches, cultural respect, and formal agreements create the infrastructure for successful partnerships. What makes his insights particularly valuable is his emphasis on both the human and structural elements—recognizing that while relationships matter deeply, they must be supported by clear agreements, consistent messaging, and data-driven approaches.
Perhaps most refreshing is Lloyd's honest approach to leadership challenges. Rather than presenting collaboration as effortless, he acknowledges that partnerships require continual work and humility. "I've made mistakes along the way and I've learned from them," he shares candidly, demonstrating how vulnerability strengthens rather than diminishes leadership credibility. His willingness to name mistakes and share lessons learned models the emotional intelligence he identifies as crucial for modern leadership.
Looking toward the future, Lloyd highlights how leaders must balance digital fluency with human-centered approaches. From embracing AI and machine learning to creating psychologically safe workspaces where diverse perspectives thrive, tomorrow's effective leaders will need to navigate constant change while maintaining purpose-driven focus. His insights serve as both challenge and roadmap for anyone seeking to harness the power of meaningful collaboration in increasingly complex environments.
Join us for this illuminating conversation that bridges theory and practice, offering tangible strategies for building partnerships that transform organizations and deliver exceptional outcomes. Whether you're navigating healthcare, academia, or any complex organizational landscape, these insights will enhance your collaborative leadership toolkit.
Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries
Hello and welcome to Leadership Horizons, where we explore leadership at its most transformative. I'm Lois Burton, an Executive Coaching Leadership Development Specialist with over 24 years of experience working with senior leaders, executives and their teams, and this week I'm excited and delighted to welcome my first guest, dr Lloyd Gregory, to Leadership Horizons today. Lloyd is the Director of the Joint Research Office for King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. So hi, lloyd, and welcome.
Speaker 2:Hi Lois. Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here today, Welcome.
Speaker 1:Hi, lois, thank you very much for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here today. It's great to see you. We've known each other for quite some time.
Speaker 1:We have, we have and we've shared quite a few of our joint challenges over the years. So I know that you've had a transformative leadership journey in your career, and much of that has involved working with your teams in many of the areas which I believe are especially crucial for leaders at the present time. So today we're going to speak particularly about the need for collaboration and how you approach collaboration and building robust, trusting and creative partnerships that can enhance joint performance, because I know that this is a big part of your work, and we're also going to look at strategic communication and get a little bit of thinking on how you see leadership evolving both today and in the future. So could you start off, lloyd, by giving us all some background on who you are and what you're doing now with the Joint Research Office, and how you came to see the areas we're going to talk about today as being so important in your role as a leader?
Speaker 2:Thanks, lois. So, yeah, I am the director of the King's College, london and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust Joint Research Office. A little bit about my career today. I suppose you could divide it into three parts, really as a card-carrying researcher, as a research manager, and then I spent three and a half years or so learning all about improvement methodology. So how you bring improvement methodology to research, I suppose, has been my kind of key outcome from spending some time in that space.
Speaker 2:So a little bit about the Joint Research Office. It's a partnership between those two organizations. It's been designed to enhance the initiation and delivery of translational and clinical research. But, unlike a lot of joint research offices, it's not there to replace the R&D operational activities or co-locate existing structures across King's College and Guy's and St Thomas'. Instead, it's there as an agent for positive change, ensuring existing expertise is utilised to its fullest by creating a collaborative culture, solutions and innovative efficiencies that accelerate translational and clinical research. Great translational and clinical research.
Speaker 2:And it's really hoped that the JRO will play a critical role in creating the environment to improve the overall efficiency of research, to become both a national and international exemplar of best practice. That's fantastic, yeah, so that's the aim. That's the aim, but you know we've established this partnership from scratch. Those two organizations have worked together for a long time, but in this space, this is the first time they're really working closely together. So creating a safe space to explore, you know, some of those inefficiencies that we want to correct and to change the ways of working will rely heavily on enhancing the collaborative culture between these two powerhouses of translational and clinical research excellence. It's also an opportunity and a challenge, and it's probably the main reason why I was so attracted to the role. I don't think there's anything better than witnessing those moments when collaborators truly see the value, the added value that partnership working brings, knowing that they probably could never have achieved that on their own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I know that that brings you in particular. I know that you get really inspired by that and it's one of the things that you love so much about your role Most definitely importance of it, but the methods particularly that you're using or intend to be using to foster the effective collaboration in your team and in your partnerships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so interestingly a bit of a plug here I recently put out a post on LinkedIn on this very topic. Yeah, thank you. And again, these were just sort of 10 tips really. That is trust. You know organizations should strive to build and maintain trust through transparent communication, reliability and mutual respect. And you know, trust enables partners to really work together more effectively to share resources, navigate challenges and get to an outcome. That's you know. And get to an outcome that's, you know, a preferable for both parties.
Speaker 2:Yeah, next one I think you need a balanced strategy of a top-down and bottom-up approach here. I think the top-down approach ensures that the leadership provides clear direction, vision and support. Meanwhile, the bottom-up approach empowers team members at all levels to contribute their insights and their expertise. Sure, number three, if that's the right order, uh, having sort of respect for the cultural differences and values that each organization brings and they do bring their own unique culture, value and practices to the table. I think respecting these differences and finding common ground can enhance collaboration and prevent misunderstanding, and I think by not doing that, you do so at your peril. So I think you know, respecting their expertise, their strengths, their specialisms, their values is absolutely key moving forward.
Speaker 2:The next one is it's a bit dull, it's a bit sort of boring, but I think it's an absolute necessity, you know, have a formal collaboration agreement between the two organisations. I think when parties start working together for the first time, they're all excited, they're very enthusiastic about it. Everything is seen with, you know, with positivity about it. Everything is seen with positivity. But there will be bumps in the road, there will be times where there will be disagreement, and actually having a framework that outlines those expectations will come in very, very handy for resolving conflicts and ensuring smooth collaboration.
Speaker 2:I also think that the open and honest conversation we had at the start about doing this, I think really kind of embedded that trust. And you know, we know it's not going to be easy, but we do want to work together and we do want to make sure we achieve everything we want to. So I think a collaboration agreement is an important thing. Yeah, yeah, data and measurement obviously, having spent some time in the improvement world, it would be wrong of me not to mention this. But having data at hand to collect and analyze relevant data, partners can make informed decisions, they can track progress and they can demonstrate the impact of their collaboration of their collaboration.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and I agree with you, lloyd, because I think you know we talk a lot about what might be termed the soft skills of building trust. You know the relationship management and all of that, but I think it does have to be founded on frameworks and data and the ability to measure how you're doing. So, yeah, I would absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think again, I think it's one of those cornerstones I really do. Next one co-creating. So co-creating solutions and strategies as much as possible, I think, ensures that all partners are actively engaged in the process. I think it also fosters a sense of ownership and commitment, leading to more innovative and effective outcomes. Right, yeah. Next one, again an obvious one, but it would be remiss of me not to mention it Make sure that you have continuous involvement from your stakeholders. So engaging your stakeholders throughout the journey, really from the start, during and, you know, as you come to the end of some of the projects that you'll be doing together. You know I've established a stakeholder advisory group for the JRO and they're my sounding board, they're my sense checkers. They're the people I'm going to go to and say I'm thinking of doing doing this or we're thinking of doing that. What do you think is that? Is that worth our effort? Is that worth the endeavor? Yeah, and getting some good, honest feedback from the start and throughout, I think is really important.
Speaker 1:Next thing sorry, no, I was just gonna say, and you know, you must have a really wide range of stakeholders and actually you know, being able to engage a whole host of stakeholders, that must be challenging at times.
Speaker 2:It is. You know, the NHS and academia are two big worlds. There's lots of people involved in both those organizations. You know we have the researchers themselves. We have the R&D divisions that are managing a lot of the research. We have the funders that we receive research funding from. We have industry partners. There's all sorts of people that you know you need to be considering and consulting when you're setting something like this up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, I'm sorry, I jumped in there, so please do that's all right, that's fine.
Speaker 2:Next one again. It's probably a no-brainer, but I'm going to say it anyway. You know, ensuring there's clarity of purpose and that there is consistent messaging will avoid misunderstanding. Probably anybody that's seen me present in the last six months they will see the same slide deck over and over and over again. That's not because I'm not the best PowerPoint creator. It's to actually make sure that those points are consistently made throughout, because there's nothing worse than somebody getting the wrong end of the stick, and in big organizations that can happen very easily. Making sure that those messages are absolutely clear are so important to keep people on the same page and reduce that risk of misunderstanding. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Next one strategy and implementation. We've all been involved in creating strategies. They're great fun to create, but I also think it's very important that alongside that strategy, you have an implementation plan of how you're going to do that. So you know, I've recently just written the jro's two-year strategy and I've been within. That is there, is the is the work plan. The the the recipe for how we're actually going to deliver that over the next coming, the next two years, yeah, and then finally, again, there's nothing better, in my opinion, than a good strategic dashboard as a way of visually representing key metrics and performance indicators and allowing partners to track their achievements and identify areas for improvement. I think that when you get that top level that you can drill down, the more interested you become in whatever you're looking at I think is really really important, in whatever you're looking at I think is really really important, and it means that you can make those in-course adjustments fairly quickly before an amber turns to a red. You know, and I think that's what we're trying to avoid in any kind of circumstance.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And I guess, just listening to you here, Lloyd, one thing that really strikes me is this takes work, doesn't it? You can't just kind of rock up and go okay, we're going to collaborate now. This takes a lot of thoughtful work and, as you say, consistent follow-up and ongoing work to make sure that that collaboration continues to stay positive and that you can get past any disagreements or mistakes that you make.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think there's something about me, as the sort of narrator of this story, being humble as well. I've made mistakes along the way and I've learned from my mistakes and I will quite openly name my mistakes and what I learned from them. And I've learned from my mistakes and I will quite openly, you know, name my mistakes and what I learned from them. And I think that humility is so important in leadership now. It's so important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. I agree. I agree with that light. I think you know being willing to talk about you know yourself in those terms and to say you know I've made mistakes in the past and that we're bound to make them, you know, but we can get past them, I think is very, very important. Would you be willing just to share an example of what you see as perhaps being any of the more common mistakes in building collaborations and what you see as some of the solutions to that? I think?
Speaker 2:probably don't assume you know your partnership when you first enter it. I think is the. I suppose it's my big tip. I made that mistake many years ago and I then spent about six months trying to undo the damage that I created through that misunderstanding of the partners that I'm working with.
Speaker 2:So I think it's not good enough just to go on the website and read all about them. You've got to get under the bonnet of those organizations. The organizations consist of people, so making the right connections with the right people is absolutely critical in in any kind of partnership or collaboration. So I think that would be my, my main piece of advice there around you know, don't assume you know the organizations because you've read up on them, on you know linkedin or their website. You know, don't assume you know the organizations because you've read up on them, on you know LinkedIn or their website. You know you've really got to get under the bonnet of them to understand what you know, what they're good at, what they're not so good at, and you know the sensitivities and you know the ongoing politics that you have in any organization.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you, thanks, lloyd, and thanks for sharing that. And so, thirdly, we said we would just do some thinking about strategic communication because, again, I know that you know you've talked about the, you know the personal communications that you do and that you've led, but there is also this area of strategic communication. So could you just say a little bit about how you handle that area of your work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I suppose for that. I'm normally a big lover of the number three, but I've got a five-point sort of plan I have, or considerations I kind of work by when I'm thinking about strategic communication. So the first one, again, the first two or three probably I've sort of touched on previously. But understand the needs and preferences and behaviors of your target audience, I think is absolutely important and paramount when you're thinking about your strategic communication. Again, we definitely have just touched on this about clear, consistent, compelling messages that resonate with your audience and not being afraid to repeat yourself several hundred times. In my case, as I think you know, in large organizations some of those messages can easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted. So I think being clear and consistent is absolutely key.
Speaker 2:Choosing the most effective media you know email works really well for a lot of people. It certainly doesn't work well for me, I can't bear it. But email, you know, is a good medium. But you know we live in a society of, you know, social media. So X, linkedin, facebook, if that's one of your platforms, then use them all. Use them all, I would say, and don't be scared. To Alongside that, making sure that you execute your communication plans through various tactics and activities and that will be tailored to what you're setting out to achieve. Is that about reach? Is that about depth? Whatever? It's about making sure that you use the right tactics and activities for that. And then I suppose again, no real surprise, having come from background in improvement, is I've really come to appreciate the value of measurement in all its forms quantitative, qualitative measuring, the effectiveness of your communication efforts and making adjustments as needed, I think are really really important areas to think about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again, do you have any examples of the qualitative and quantitative measures that you might use?
Speaker 2:Yeah, quantitative measures, you know, I think, are things that we all use in our day-to-day lives anyway if we're in this sort of business. So website analytics, you know the fact, the visits to page views, bounce rates, all of that. Your social media metrics, you know, your monitor your follower growth, your engagement rates, your click-through rates, all of those are really a good quantitative measures. And again, if you really love email, then you email, then you can measure open rates and tick-through rates and subscribe rates as well for newsletters that come attached to an email. So I think those simple quantitative metrics I think are very, very helpful Qualitative metrics. And I've really grown to appreciate the qualitative metrics.
Speaker 2:Coming from a PhD in quantitative measures, qualitative was a bit of a new area for me. I really love it. So surveys and feedback I know in-depth insights into your audience's attitudes and behaviors, and then you know a bit of sort of content analysis. So evaluate the. You know the effectiveness of your messaging and your content and then you know making those adjustments as you go along, depending on what your strategy is about.
Speaker 1:So, thinking about how you continually improve on those things, yeah, and I think, as I say, one of the things that you know, we've had conversations about in the past and one of the things that I really embrace these days is that balance between qualitative and quantitative and how important both of them are. Great Thanks, lloyd. So the final question I hope I'm not putting you too much on the spot here is that's what it is. So, from your perspective, how do you see you know you've talked about modern leadership, but how do you see leaders and leadership evolving over the next few years? What do you think are going to be some of the trends that we say so?
Speaker 2:you have put me on the spot, okay, all right, right, okay. So again, just thinking about, you know, today's world. You know it's very, very digitally oriented, isn't it? You know? So I think we need to be adept at managing all of the various platforms and digital tools that we have available to us. You know, let's embrace AI, let's embrace, you know, machine learning. Let's think about all the social media platforms and really kind of utilizing those to the fullest. So I think a future leader, or a leader of the future, will need to really get under the skin of these skills. I think. No surprise to you, lois. Emotional intelligence, I think, is it's something that leaders who don't cultivate that, I think, are onto a hiding, to nothing in the future. So I think we all know the value it brings to building strong teams, enhancing employee engagement and driving performance in that way. I think it's really, really important. Again, another big area I think we should pay a lot of attention to is EDI and inclusive leadership.
Speaker 2:Leaders of the future need to continue to and enhance creating psychologically safe workspaces where diverse perspectives are valued, because I think that leads to innovation and improved decision making.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 2:And again, no real big surprise here, I think, being comfortable with change and being uncomfortable sorry, not being uncomfortable. Being comfortable with uncertainty and change and being proactive in learning from the challenges that that brings.
Speaker 1:I think is really, really important.
Speaker 2:Purpose-driven leadership, I think, is really good. I think those you know, leaders that inspire a shared vision and align their teams with a higher mission is going to have, you know, a greater outcome there from from from their teams and from the outcomes that they want. No big surprise, probably. Let's embrace collaborative leadership, let's get behind collaboration, because I think, more than ever, collaboration is really the way forward, creating those symbiotic relationships that really do bring out the best from organizations. Uh, and now you're pushing me.
Speaker 2:You're pushing me um this is gonna have to be the last one because I'm honestly out of. I'm running out of ideas. I think, finally, if it's not too repetitive, embrace continuous learning, prioritize a culture of continuous improvement yeah, I think is is something that a leader of the future should embrace and and live by.
Speaker 1:Really I I 100% agree with with everything you've said there and I I think that you know I've been talking a lot about adaptive leadership, um, and adaptive intelligence and enhanced emotional intelligence, but that openness to change, because you know the pace of change is not going to slow down, I think you know we've got to be able to embrace that continuous learning and improvement, and last week I talked about the importance of leaders prioritizing this for themselves and for their teams, both in terms of personal development, team development, but also the development of, you know, of their offer, the products and service that they provide. So I think you know those are the key and crucial skills that leaders need today. So thanks ever so much for sharing some of that, lloyd, and sorry for putting you on the spot in that way.
Speaker 2:I should be used to it by now. Lois, You've been my coach for a very long time. I should be more used to that.
Speaker 1:Indeed, indeed. So just to say thank you again, lloyd. Really appreciate your time coming on today. I know that the audience are going to be really interested in the things that you shared with us today. So big, big thank you again and I hope we might see you again at some point in the future.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'd look forward to that. It'd be good fun. I'd really value that.
Speaker 1:Great. So goodbye everybody. I hope you've enjoyed it today and found it valuable, and this is Leadership Horizons, and I will see you again next week. Bye for now.