Vaccinating a billion people against COVID-19: India’s quest for systems leadership in exceptional times

Purpose In January 2021, India launched the world’s most extensive vaccination campaign against COVID-19. It is estimated that India would need to vaccinate over a billion people to achieve herd immunity. Even though the Indian Government focuses on improving and delivering its vaccination programme, significant challenges still exist. This paper aims to discuss current challenges to scale up India’s vaccination campaign and addresses strategies for achieving this. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a review of secondary sources, including journal articles from scholarly and grey literature and information available in the public domain. The search focused explicitly on the COVID-19 scenario, vaccination programme, public health management and systems leadership in the Indian health care system. Findings The analysis revealed that various factors have disrupted India’s vaccination campaign, including shortage of vaccine doses, mandatory prior online registration, lack of infrastructure, safety concerns for older people, untrained workforce and absence of a solid public health framework. Furthermore, India appears to have struggled to reduce tensions and instill trust in its ability to effectively manage the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccination programme due to a lack of cooperation between union government, state governments and other stakeholders, namely, policymakers, hospitals, industry and community. Originality/value The findings indicate that scaling up India’s anti-COVID vaccination programme would require system-level leadership strategies that work within the country’s limited resources. Deeper reforms in vaccine development, storage, delivery, training and regulatory frameworks are also needed to extend the world’s largest anti-COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

Systems Leadership: how Chief Executives manage tension between organisation and system pressures

Aim: System leadership is the requirement for a leader of a single organisation to operate on behalf of a wider system, rather than their individual organisation. It is not clear to what extent the current policy landscape supports leaders in managing misalignment between the needs of their organisation and the wider system, as many national structures still emphasise a focus on individual organisations. This study aims to understand how Chief Executives implement system leadership in practice when faced with decisions that benefit the system to the detriment of their own trust. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Chief Executives from a range of trust types to understand their perceptions and decision-making process in practice. Semantic thematic analysis was used to draw out themes in relation to how Chief Executives approach decisions which weigh up the system and organisation. Results: Themes raised by interviewees included both advantages (such as support in managing demand) and disadvantages (such as increased bureaucracy) of system leadership and practical considerations in operationalisation (such as the importance of interpersonal relationships). Interviewees endorsed system leadership in principle, but did not feel that the organisational incentives as currently structured support the implementation of system leadership in practice. This was not seen as a major challenge or impediment to effective leadership. Conclusion: As a specific policy area, a direct focus on systems leadership is not necessarily helpful. Chief Executives should be supported to make decisions in a complex environment, without a specific focus on healthcare systems as a unit of operation.

Systems leadership in the early years

This paper describes a new leadership coaching model that was delivered as part of Manchester city region's delivery of the Department for Education's Early Outcomes Fund. The coaching model explicitly paralleled the relational practices that are increasingly shaping early intervention policy and practice. Goodwin's theory of professional vision ( 1994 ) and Shotter's theorisation of with-ness ( 2011 ) provided the conceptual lens for this paper. The coaching facilitation aimed to afford the emergence of a new way of seeing leadership by scrutinising events of relational practice between participants in the coaching sessions (using video recording and review) and creating discursive practices using strengths-based analysis. We exemplify the coaching model using notes from a collaborative ethnographic evaluation of the six half-day group coaching sessions, surfacing how a new way of seeing silence may have seeded a new ‘object of knowledge’ in the group's emerging professional vision of leadership in the early years.

The Influence of Understanding Accounting Information Systems, Leadership Style, Employee Motivation, and Work Discipline in Employees Performance KC BRI Sidoarjo

This research aims to know the influence of understanding Accounting Information Systems, Leadership Style, Employees Motivation, and Work Discipline in Employees Performance at KC BRI Sidoarjo. The instrument is in the form of google forms to get research data. This research data collection is validity test and reliability test. The hypothesis is that there is an the influence of understanding accounting information systems, leadership style, employees motivation, and work discipline in employees performance. The analytical tool used to test the hypothesis is SPSS version 18. The test results based on the validity test show that all questions on Google Forms are declared valid. While the test results based on the reliability test of all variables, the value of cronbach's alpha > 0,6 means that it is declared reliable and for the results of the Hypothesis Test in the form of T-Statistic and R-Square, it states that there is an influence between understanding accounting information systems, leadership style, employees motivation, and work discipline in employees performance. This is shown from the results of tcount for the variable understanding of the accounting information system (X1) of 2.113, the variable of leadership style (X2) of 2.101, the variable of employees motivation (X3) of 2.114, and the variable of work discipline (X4) of 2.189.

Issues and challenges influencing school improvement opportunities for science and mathematics

This qualitative interpretive study explores issues and challenges influencing school improvement opportunities for Science and Mathematics in selected South African high schools through a systems leadership lens. Unstructured interviews were conducted with 13 participants comprising a principal, deputy principals, heads of department (HODs) for Science and Mathematics, and Mathematics and Physical Sciences teachers in four schools. The data from the interviews were analysed using the constant comparison techniques, allowing for inductive theme and concept building through abstraction. Findings show that participants, irrespective of school context, were generally eager to enhance the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics. These challenges include the curriculum policy, the role of the district education office, professional development, learner‑related challenges, and resources. It is recommended that the Department of Basic Education work closely with the relevant stakeholders, including teachers, to ensure context-friendly educational policies, thus ameliorating implementation challenges. Keywords: Issues and challenges, Science and Mathematics, school improvement, systems leadership

Impact and Inclusion: Transforming an EdD Program into a Crucible for Systems Change

This article shares insights from a review of dissertations produced by students in an EdD program in Educational Leadership at a public university in Connecticut. Program curriculum and learning experiences, built upon a social justice platform, prepare students to engage in scholarship and action to improve educational systems. However, retaining students’ focus on designing capstone projects that explore and seek to mitigate systemic injustice has been an ongoing challenge. To understand more about the impact of the EdD program’s vision of developing students’ capacities for systems transformation and social justice, program faculty conducted a document analysis of dissertations produced in the 15 years from program inception to the present, examining themes and trends that emerge from the focus areas, research questions, and research methods applied in dissertations. Document analysis revealed that, while earlier student dissertations tended to be more aligned with the educational policy cycle than with the program’s focus on social justice, more recent dissertations demonstrate a shift toward a stronger social justice orientation. As a member of the Carnegie Project on the Educational Doctorate (CPED) since 2018, this university’s EdD program engages in ongoing redesign to maximize impact on the field and to cultivate activism among program graduates who will lead systemic transformation in education. A conceptual framework for transcendent third-order change - cultivating systems leadership that transcends the limits of current paradigms and action, fosters collaborative engagement, and provides coherent structures for collaborative impact - is the foundation for this redesign.