WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

leadership skills to be able to positively influence the atmosphere for the smooth and safe
running of the tertiary hospital delivery suite unit.
Being the ‘pivot’ or the ‘hub’
It is the coordinator who is always ‘on the floor’ and accessible to everyone, She keeps ‘a
finger on the pulse’ of the unit wherever she may be, whether coordinating from the
office or in a room caring for a woman in labour, she remains central to everything
happening during her shift.
Being the pivot means there are times when the coordinator feels at the ‘centre of a
storm’. Coordinators reveal they are thrown into emergency situations where they display
an outward appearance of assertiveness and confidence. Whatever coordinators may be
feeling inwardly, they model a role of strong leadership to their colleagues and clients. It
is this which determines whether everyone achieves their common goal, or not.
This ‘centrality’ means the coordinator is not only accessible to staff but she is
continually consciously and subconsciously monitoring what is happening in the
geographical ‘lived space’ of the delivery suite unit and beyond to the wards. She ‘needs
to know’ what is happening and it is her effective ‘relationality’ with her colleagues
which is the means to her ‘knowing’. Her ‘doing’ is reliant on her ‘knowing’ and it is this
‘knowing’ which gives the coordinator her ability to lead her team effectively.
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