How heads of services can manage complexity in practice

By now you will have a clearer sense of how you want to strengthen your ability to manage complexity.

The following section sets out practical strategies to support you as a head of service in:

dealing with multifaceted challenges
enabling clear communication
promoting consistent, evidence-based decision-making

They will help you to lead with confidence and help your teams to use best practice to improve outcomes for children and families. These are separated into suggestions that will benefit you, your team, and your work with wider stakeholders. Which of the activities below do you think you, your supervisees and service would most benefit from doing? Select one that you would like to experiment with.

Thinking about yourself

Volunteer to lead cross-functional projects

Look for an opportunity to lead a project which draws on the investment and skills of stakeholders across different teams in your service. This will help you to develop your ability to balance competing interests, manage resource constraints, and create alignment between different agendas. This will refine your leadership skills in complex environments and increase your capacity to handle complexity across wider systems. With a wider perspective, you can develop skills in managing the complexity of diverse teams and priorities.

Thinking about your service

Data-driven discussions

Hold regular data review sessions with your teams to analyse patterns in case outcomes. Based on this, you can adjust strategies and make informed decisions.
Gather data on case outcomes, service performance, and any important indicators related to children and families. This might include case closure rates, the effectiveness of interventions, timeliness of service delivery, and feedback from families.
Begin with a review of the data, encouraging staff to interpret the data themselves, highlighting key trends, areas of concern, or successful outcomes.
As a group, analyse the reasons behind both positive and negative trends. Guide the team to identify actions they can take to improve outcomes based on this analysis.
Implement changes to strategies based on the data insights and schedule follow-up sessions to monitor progress and effect.

Facilitate peer reviews

Establish peer review systems where teams evaluate each other’s work, encouraging shared learning and continuous improvement across the service.
Develop a peer review framework where staff can evaluate each other’s casework. They can use specific criteria related to service delivery, risk assessment, and outcomes for children and families. This could involve reviewing case files, observing practice, or participating in reflective discussions.
Ensure that the peer review system is framed as a supportive, learning-focused process for identifying strengths and areas for improvement through collaborative learning.
Schedule regular peer review sessions. Small groups of staff present a case they’re working on and peers provide constructive feedback, identifying areas for improvement and sharing best practices.
Encourage teams to reflect on the feedback in supervision sessions and assess their progress in subsequent peer reviews.

Balance operational and strategic reviews

Hold regular evaluation sessions with leaders from different areas of the service. They should balance both operational efficiency and strategic outcomes and prioritise the child’s wellbeing.

Create a schedule for regular review meetings, ensuring a balance between:
Use service data to examine how current operational processes effect the overall quality of outcomes for children and families.
In every evaluation, focus the discussion on the child's journey through the service.
Adjust operational processes where needed to align them with strategic goals, while always keeping the child’s wellbeing as the primary focus.

Thinking about the wider system

Collaborate with diverse stakeholder groups

Hold stakeholder engagement sessions with representatives from minority communities to co-design services and ensure that underrepresented voices are included into strategic planning and service delivery.

This involves building strong relationships with diverse community groups and organisations to ensure that service delivery reflects the needs of the entire community.

Over to you

After you’ve reviewed these activities, choose one from each section that you’d like to experiment with. You can use the 4C leadership capability framework action plan to detail when and where you’ll try these out and reflect on their effect over time.

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The resources have been developed by Frontline in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 30 January 2025
Last updated: 30 January 2025

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