Ledarskap i socialt arbete

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this paper is to increase our understanding of what constitutes a good leadership in social work. The questions I've chosen are: what competencies are important for a leader in social work? What values and/or ethical principles are important to have/follow as a leader in social work? To get an insight into how you look at leadership in social work in a Swedish context, I have made interviews with fifteen leaders, each and every one of them working within the field of social work. In the interviews I ask open-ended, yet somewhat directed questions, to figure out what characteristics and principles these leaders regard as the foundation of a good leadership. To broaden the studies knowledgebase I've also read, analyzed and summarized previous studies on the subject. I will use these studies to broaden my discussion by looking at similarities. The leaders have been given a chance to communicate what characterizes a good leader within social work. The main goal of the interviews has been to uncover what characteristics, competencies and ethical values/principles these leaders regard as important. The results clearly show that it's important with education and competencies within leadership. They also show the importance of other competencies such as and understanding of economics, psychology, behavioral sciences, conflict management, etc. Furthermore the interviews show that the softer values and ethical principles such as equal rights, empathy and having a salutogenic perspective are given more focus than education and competence. This study shows that leaders in social work praise the transformal leadership model and strive to act according to it themselves. The majority of Swedish leaders in my study don't think there's a difference between leadership in social work versus leadership in other professions. This separates Swedish and American leaders, where a majority of the latter think there's a difference.