So welcome to Leading Insights. Today we are joined by the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon. I am Kate Arrow, I'm a registrar in Anaesthesia.

 

And I'm Thomas Lamont, I'm a Registrar in Restorative Dentistry. First Minister, thank you for joining us. 

 

You’re welcome, lovely to talk to you.

 

First Minister, you started your career as a solicitor in Glasgow before moving into politics and subsequently into leadership roles. A lot of Doctors, Dentists and Healthcare staff don't really see themselves as leaders. What was it that inspired you to move into leadership roles?

 

I'm not sure it was ever a really conscious decision. I don't think I ever woke up one day thinking I want to be a leader. It was just where the progression of my career took me. I certainly didn't go into politics with any ambition or intention of becoming a leader. I went into politics because of what I believed in and what I wanted to campaign for and try to bring about it. But you know, as I progressed through that I got elected to Parliament and found myself being in leadership positions, and I wouldn't say I always felt or feel comfortable with that, but feeling that there was a degree of aptitude I suppose there that didn't put me off. But you know, as a leader, now, there's not a day goes by where I'm not still learning about what it means to be a leader and hopefully how to be a better leader so I'm not sure in any walk of life; I think leadership is something everybody experiences in one way or another whatever they do in life, but it's, it's not something I would necessarily recommend people should have as their primary objective in life. It's something that if you find yourself in that position, and you think you're up to doing it, then you should do but obviously to learn from others too.

 

Were there key lessons you learn throughout your time as Health Secretary, that have helped you to lead Scotland as First Minister during this COVID-19 pandemic?

 

Yes, loads and loads of lessons and I sometimes can find myself wondering what it would be like to be trying to lead the country through COVID as First Minister had I not had that experience as Health Secretary. I'm sure I would be doing it and I'm trying my best to do it, but there's no doubt that being Health Secretary he has helped with that, you know, first and foremost, at a very basic level, it gave me an understanding of how the health and care system works that, you know, I would not have had as directly without the five years or so I spent as health secretary; and during my time as Health Secretary I also led the Scottish Government response to swine flu. And so it wasn't quite the same as COVID has turned out to be but in terms of that pandemic response and some of what has to be done and considered there, I had a bit of a grounding there so there's no doubt you know, not just in the COVID response and so much of what I do in my day to day work as First Minister, that grounding as Health Secretary, which has been really important to me and you know, the job I do just now is the most privileged job in the country but having been Health Secretary is always a job that will have a very special place in my heart.

 

I'm sure you've not had much time to reflect on the last few months yet, but sort of reflecting on it now, are there things that it's taught you about yourself and about your leadership style?

 

Yeah, I think so. But as you say, I've not had the chance to process this sufficiently and hopefully one day I will and might be able to give you a more rounded answer than the one I'm about to give you right now. I think it showed me that possibly even more than I knew before, that I've got resilience and an ability to keep going through, you know, sort of tough times and, and focus very much on decisions that have to be taken there and then and try to do that in quite a methodical way. I suppose I've been reminded, as I so often was as Health Secretary of how the decisions I take, so often can only be taken with the input of lots of clinical and expert and scientific advice and that has been hugely important to me. So there is a need always to think about what it is that only I can do and decide, but what it is I need in order to base those decisions because I'm not a clinician, I'm not a scientist. And so, I'm very dependent on the advice that I get but recognising my responsibility to apply the judgement to that, and it's supposed to take the responsibility and the accountability for it as well. 

 

I suppose one of the things it has taught me though, in a way that nothing else in my political career has is that sometimes, all of what goes with politics and being a politician really doesn't matter. And all that matters right now is just trying to take the right decisions, as best you can, and the need to forget about whether they're popular or not or what they're going to mean, in an electoral sense, that kind of thing is and I, you know, if I turn the clock back six months or so, I may have never believed this would be the case, but that stuff just doesn't really matter in the day to day decision making. And I suppose that's been quite eye opening for somebody who's spent so long in politics in that more traditional sense.

 

A lot of people, following this, are really thinking about what's important in life aren’t they? 

 

Our final year Medical and Nursing students graduated early to support the service. They were as usual full of enthusiasm; across the workforce it is recognised that we all need to do more to prevent burnout and low morale. What advice would you give to people who have to step up into new or unfamiliar roles during sort of uncertain times like these?

 

I would say a few things. Firstly, I want to take the opportunity while I have it just to say such a massive heartfelt thank you to people who did step up into these roles, graduating early taking on more responsibility than they would normally have done that early on in their careers. And, you know, we all owe everybody across health and care, but I think particularly people that position an enormous debt of gratitude. 

 

And before I go on to talk about what my advice would be to individuals I think one of the reflections I will take away from this, and as you know, as you said a moment ago, we've all been reassessing what really matters in life. And, you know, all of us, starting with politicians have to think about how we do value people working in our health service and our social care system. Do we value that enough in the support that is around them, and, frankly, that the financial rewards we give, and while there may be no overnight, immediate way of completely transforming all of that, you know, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we've all been reminded of just how dependent we all are on people in these positions. 

 

I suppose my advice to individuals would be and you know, forgive me I'm, I've never been in that position. And you know, no matter what I have to do on a daily basis, it's not the same as stepping onto a busy hospital ward or into a care home or into an ICU Ward so I can’t put myself into those shoes and understand exactly what that is like. But I suppose what I would say is, you know, never be afraid to ask people around you for help. Never think that's a sign of weakness. It's something that I've learned throughout my career that knowing when to ask for help, knowing who to ask for help, and not being scared to say I don't know what to do here. I need somebody else to guide me through that is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength to be able to do that. And I think in any walk of life, particularly when you're in a very high pressured environment, that's a really important skill because it is a skill because I think many of us see it as something that we should not do because it's seen as a weakness, but it is an important skill to have.

 

In healthcare, we often work in large and complex teams in really challenging circumstances. Do you have any personal advice or strategy that you use for dealing with conflict?

 

It is something that I still after lots and lots of years of experience, find, not the easiest thing to do. And politics is almost by its nature, very adversarial. So conflict is almost hardwired into the environment that I work in every day. But I suppose what I would say is, and this is something that I perhaps even now still don't practice as much as I should, particularly when you're in a very highly stressed and high pressured situation, it's always I think, really good to try to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, the person that you might be in that conflict or adversarial situation with, just to try to imagine the situation as they see it because we all have a tendency to, to see everything from our own perspective and our own point of view and think we are right about whatever the cause of a conflict might be. So I try, as I say, I probably don’t practice this as much as I preach it, but to just flip things around.

 

And, and try to see the world from the other person's point of view and then and break it down and understand what might be lying behind the conflict of the tense situation that you're in and remember, I suppose again, not having the personal experience of this, I guess in a healthcare situation is reminding yourself that ultimately I suppose you're all on the same side because you will all be working to try to achieve the same outcomes.

 

Yeah, we've got lots of stories across society as well, especially at the start of the pandemic. Where, actually, people were reaching out, you know, offering to deliver groceries and things. I think that sense of community really grew during that time. Hopefully, it's something we can take forward both professionally and personally.

 

What advice would you give to your younger self?

 

There's lots of advice I would probably give to my younger self, although knowing my younger self she would probably tell me where to go. Because the last thing my younger self was ever overly prepared to do was listen to a 50-year-old telling her what to do. The advice I would give, I was quite, I was quite a serious young person which is not a bad thing in and of itself but I probably took myself too seriously and was a bit po-faced; I’d probably tell myself to, to lighten up a bit and not take myself so seriously. I think I'd advise myself to you know, to take advice and to always listen to points of view from other people, particularly people I instinctively disagreed with because after you listen to people you disagree with you might still disagree with them, but there's usually something you can learn to reflect on. And yeah, those are probably the main bits of advice, but as I say, I can almost picture and hear my younger self right now going “yeah, yeah, okay, whatever”.

 

Do you think that there’s more that we can all do as individuals and do you think there's more that we can do to have those conversations because you hear about it a lot in society where people are becoming a bit more into their silos, and the actual conversations are sometimes just being avoided. Is there more that we can do or is there any advice that you'd give in general to try and break down those silos? 

 

So I think I mean, the World and I don't want to make myself sound like my granny here, but the world is very different today than it was when I was 16, 17, 18. You know, social media didn't exist back then. So I suppose it's even more important now, for young people to talk to others and to interact at a level that is much deeper than just, you know, Twitter or Facebook, or sending these really superficial messages to each other, because social media really does. It polarises people and it also corrals people into groups where they all agree with each other the algorithms that run Twitter and Facebook operate in a way that try to avoid you speaking to and interacting with people that have a different worldview or mindset or outlook on life. 

 

And, and I think that's really dangerous not just to young people think it's dangerous or politics our society our democracy. And there's plenty evidence of that, all across the world, right now. So taking time to engage meaningfully on a human level with people and actually taking the time and this might sound like a bit of an ironic thing for a politician to be advising people to do, but taking time to actually understand somebody else's point of view and, and allowing your own point of view to be challenged. And I think is probably a really important thing for all of us to do and always has been, but it's more important right now, when so much of how we live our lives and so much of the way the world operates actually forces us to tribes where you know, we never interact across those boundaries. So come off social media and Twitter and Facebook and actually talk to people, I think would be some advice that all of us would do well to take up.

 

So thinking back to that, that younger self, we've been asking all of our guests as our final question. In another life, is there another career that you think you could have seen yourself trying out? You'd love to tried and so far we've got half a cast of Les Misérables and a few people running for the hills. So what about you? 

 

I'm pretty certain I would never have been in the cast of Les Misérables because I have no musical ability at all.

Neither have the people who said that I hasten to add they’ve not been singers either! 

 

Maybe I've got, you know, again, politicians are not usually known for their abundance of self-awareness. I think I've got enough self-awareness to know that that was never going to be a possibility for me. When I was wee and growing up, when people used to ask me what I wanted to do. I would say two things interchangeably. One was I wanted to be a lawyer, which I did go on and study lawyer and practice law for a short period of time and had not gone into politics would undoubtedly I think, have continued to practice law and who knows what direction that would have gone in; but the other thing I used to say that I really wanted to do was write children's books. And so who knows, maybe although JK Rowling has probably captured a bit of that market in the years since but writing is something that I would love to think I could do and writing fiction in particular, I'm not convinced I do have it with me to do that, but it's maybe something I'd like to try my hand out at some stage in the future. 

Thank you for your time today, we realise how busy you are, we really appreciate you coming on to the show, thank you.

 

Thank you both it was good to talk to you.

 

 

Thank you, First Minister.

 

Lovely to meet you. 

 

Lovely to meet you both too.