One of the days I will always remember was when we received the Care Quality Commission outcome for Older People's Services.
An Outstanding rating is obviously something to celebrate, but what stayed with me was what was sat behind it. I thought about the staff working difficult shifts, the conversations with families, the incidents we had learned from, the difficult discharge meetings, the small improvements that nobody outside the service would necessarily see, and the people who consistently chose to do the right thing when nobody was inspecting them.
It reinforced something I believe strongly: excellent services are rarely built through one big intervention. They are built through hundreds of small behaviours, repeated consistently.
Partnership is how we care
I said yes to presenting at our AGM this year because I saw it as an opportunity to tell the story behind the CQC result rather than simply present the rating.
I wanted people to understand that an Outstanding result does not belong to one manager or one ward. It reflects service users, carers, support workers, nurses, doctors, Allied Health Professionals, operational teams, external partners and many other people working around a shared purpose.
There were nerves before going on stage, of course. But once I started speaking, it stopped feeling like I was giving a presentation and started feeling like I was telling the story of a service I am very proud of.
What did I want people to take away? Probably one sentence: partnership is not something we add to care. Partnership is how we care.
I wanted people to understand that the CQC saw the outcome, but the rating was created long before inspection day. It was created through everyday behaviours: somebody noticing distress, a nurse listening to a family, professionals challenging one another appropriately, teams learning from incidents, people sharing risk rather than passing it on, and leaders remaining connected to frontline practice.
One of the phrases I used was: "Outstanding is not a moment. It is a pattern." That is probably what I hope people remember.
Invisible work
People sometimes assume that confidence is something you either naturally have or you don't. I don't think that's true.
A lot of the confidence people see in me now has been built through preparation, experience, making mistakes, accepting feedback and repeatedly stepping into situations that initially felt uncomfortable.
The AGM was a good example. Standing in front of that room may have looked natural, but there was a significant amount of preparation behind those 12 to 15 minutes! I think confidence is often the visible result of a lot of invisible work.
Good sponsorship
My career in mental health certainly wasn't a perfectly mapped-out plan.
My nursing journey has taken me through different experiences, but mental health became an area I connected with strongly because so much of good mental health care is based on relationships. You can have policies, medication and clinical interventions, but people also need to feel heard, understood and respected.
I've been fortunate to have people like Freedom Nwokedi who have seen potential in me, sometimes before I fully saw it in myself. The people who have made the biggest difference have not simply told me I was doing well. They have challenged me, given honest feedback, trusted me with responsibility and created opportunities for me to stretch beyond what was comfortable.
Good sponsorship is powerful. Sometimes, one person saying, "I think you can do this — have a go," can change the direction of somebody's career. I try to remember that now when I am supporting other people.
Having the experience of adapting to a different country, workplace and way of doing things has made me very conscious of what it feels like to be new, to be uncertain about expectations, or sometimes to know what you want to say but not feel completely confident saying it.
That has influenced the way I lead.
I try not to assume that silence means somebody has nothing to contribute, or that one communication style suits everybody. Sometimes the most important leadership skill is creating enough psychological safety for somebody to find their voice.
The other 11 months
For me, a platform gives somebody an opportunity to speak. Being genuinely listened to means what they say has some influence on what happens afterwards.
Representation matters, and occasions like Black History Month are important. But genuine inclusion is what happens during the other 11 months as well.
It's who gets invited into conversations before decisions are made.
Who gets encouraged to apply for opportunities.
Whose potential gets noticed.
Whose opinion is sought when they are not the most senior person in the room.
If I could change one thing about Navigo tomorrow, I would strengthen the bridge between potential and opportunity even further.
Talent is distributed widely. Opportunity is not always distributed as evenly. Organisations become stronger when they actively close that gap.
Names that may never appear on a slide
As for who deserves more recognition, I would probably highlight the people whose contribution is enormous but whose work is often less visible.
Often it is not a senior professional who notices the subtle change in somebody's behaviour, sits with a distressed person, has the conversation that reassures a family, or knows the small personal detail that changes how we approach somebody.
Leadership has made me appreciate more and more that organisations are held together by many people whose names may never appear on a presentation slide.
I think we should tell their stories more often.