First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership?

At the risk of stating what may seem obvious, my key message would be that everyone is a leader and follower at different points in the journey and that everyone has something to teach you. Embracing diversity of opinion and experience, which can be challenging in fast moving and high pressure situations, is really important for learning.

My experience during the first wave of COVID-19 reinforced that by removing traditional assumptions around ways of working and allowing creativity and change to happen something better and potentially unanticipated has potential to emerge. I felt a genuine desire from most people on the ground to retain this freer and more fluid approach to leadership and decision making and almost an optimism about maintaining the changes going forward. As the pandemic has progressed, I have also sensed a slippage away from local decision making to a more traditional, centrally controlled model as the acuity waned over the summer. One of the many challenges for further waves is regaining that energy and dynamic creativity.

Tell us a little bit about your leadership role and how it is changing as a result of the pandemic?

Prior to the pandemic, I was working clinically as a chest physician and led the lung cancer service, my leadership role included being a deputy Chief Medical Officer and I also had a role in developing …