Leading with Hearts and Minds

To date, the NCLC podcast series Leading with Hearts and Minds has given listeners worldwide the chance to hear personal and professional leadership experiences from people working in healthcare and other sectors.

This episode argues that professional leadership begins earlier than many assume — not in a first management role, but in undergraduate education, as students learn to lead themselves, lead others, and shape their organisation's culture.

Marie Kilduff met with Professor Fintan Sheeran, Professor of Nursing and Founding Head of the School at Maynooth University, for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from that educational argument into something more personal: Sheeran's own account of a late diagnosis, and what it took to be seen and understood.

Support Information:

HSE Alcohol and Drugs Helpline

Freephone 1800 459 459, Monday to Friday from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm, or email [email protected]. The helpline offers support, information, guidance and referral on anything related to drugs and alcohol.  Visit www.drugs .ie for information on drugs, harm reduction and information on support services. 

Your Mental Health

Freephone 1800 111 888 for information on services and how to access them. Visit www.yourmentalhealth.ie for information about when to get support, organisations providing mental health services and specialist services available.

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda became the second hospital in Ireland to achieve Pathway to Excellence — the international accreditation recognising nursing excellence, workplace culture, and shared decision-making.

In this episode, Director of Nursing Adrian Cleary and Assistant Director of Nursing Áine Davern describe how the pursuit of Pathway helped their teams move beyond the fatigue of the pandemic and build something lasting — from a council structure Adrian calls "a greenhouse for new ideas" to a wellbeing programme that has changed the face of staff support at Lourdes. They talk about what it takes to lift nursing leadership out of the daily operational role and back to the strategic responsibilities their colleagues need from them.

Four members of the nursing team — Cathy Clarke, Bijily Joseph, Nena Evalaroza, and Aoife O'Neil — share their own experiences of the journey, from the ward councils that gave frontline nurses a voice, to the day the hospital received the news.

Credits:

Adrian Cleary, Director of Nursing, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital

Áine Davern, Assistant Director of Nursing, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital

Cathy Clarke, RANP

Bijily Joseph, CNM2

Nena Evalaroza, CNM2

Aoife O'Neil, Clinical Skills Facilitator

Interviewer: Marie Kilduff, National Clinical Leadership Centre for Nursing and Midwifery

St James's Hospital became the first hospital in Ireland to achieve Pathway to Excellence — an international accreditation from the American Nurses Credentialing Centre that recognises a genuinely positive working environment for nurses.

This episode is the story of how a nursing team got it over the line, in their own words.

Marie Kilduff talks to some of the people behind the success — from the Director of Nursing to the staff nurses on the wards — about what Pathway actually asks of a hospital, why the staff survey was the hardest part, and how link-nurse meetings, ward competitions and even a viral video helped bring more than 2,000 nurses with them. It's a candid conversation about culture, voice and what respect looks like in daily practice — including the moments when the effort dipped, and the day, right before St Patrick's weekend, when they finally heard the result.

In this episode:

• What Pathway to Excellence is, and the six standards behind it
• The submission, and the staff survey that had to clear a high bar
• Making it stick: link nurses, competitions and the ward trolleys
• The honest part — when momentum dipped, and what carried them through
• The nursing councils, and what an equal voice looks like in practice
• Hearing the result, and what changes once you have it

Featuring from St James's Hospital:

• Sharon Slattery, Director of Nursing
• Charlotte Stuart, Assistant Director of Nursing
• Marian Broderick, CNM 3
• Anne-Marie McKenna, CNM 2
• Ajin Ragavan Selvi, CNM 2
• Maria Begley, Staff Nurse

Credits:

Presented by Marie Kilduff

Guests: Sharon Slattery, Charlotte Stuart, Marian Broderick, Anne-Marie McKenna, Ajin Ragavan Selvi and Maria Begley, St James's Hospital

Petrina Donnelly has spent thirty-three years in nursing, from a hospital ward in Craigavon to one of Ireland's new Regional Director of Nursing and Midwifery posts. Ask how she got there, and the answer is rarely a plan — it's a series of people who encouraged her to take the next step before she felt ready. She talks to Marie Kilduff about the mentors who shaped her, what it's actually like to lead a brand-new region with no map and no handover, her vision for a genuinely integrated health service, and how a senior leader keeps going without running herself down, with a returning contribution from her former colleague Paul Gallagher, recorded before his retirement.

What does it take to nurse someone whose privacy is gone, whose environment magnifies every symptom, and whose relationship with the health system has, until now, been broken or absent? Enda Kelly has spent more than three decades finding out.

Enda is National Nurse Manager for Operations with the Irish Prison Service, a Fellow of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and is currently a year into a PhD on the intersection of law, ethics, and prison regulation. In this conversation, he speaks to Marie Kilduff about what prison nursing actually involves — clinically, ethically, and personally — and about the leadership practice he's built over a career.

What does it take to provide therapy to the people who provide care? Marie Kilduff speaks with Morgan Lucey, Head of National Employee Assistance Services in the HSE's Workplace Health and Wellbeing Unit, about the service that supports more than 100,000 healthcare staff across Ireland.

IF YOU NEED SUPPORT.

For HSE staff: Phone (national line): 0818 327 327

Email (referrals): [email protected]

Online resource hub:

www.inspiresupporthub.org/HSE-EAPandME

Website: www.hse.ie/EAPandME

Credits: Leading with Hearts and Minds is hosted by Marie Kilduff.

In this episode, Marie Kilduff speaks with Adam Harris, CEO of As I Am, Ireland's national autism charity. Adam is autistic himself, and that lived experience shapes everything he does — from founding As I Am over twelve years ago to leading the organisation's work across healthcare, employment, education and community inclusion.

Adam speaks candidly about growing up autistic in Ireland in the 1990s, navigating a system that had little awareness of autism, and the isolation he felt as a teenager before finding his voice as a writer and advocate. From that starting point, he built one of Ireland's most respected disability organisations — one that places autistic people at the centre of everything it does.

In this episode, Adam and Marie discuss:

• What it means to move beyond awareness towards genuine acceptance of autistic people
• Why autism should be understood as an accessibility issue, not a deficit
• The barriers autistic people face when accessing healthcare — and how relatively simple changes can make a significant difference
• The policy landscape shaping autism support in Ireland includes the Autism Innovation Strategy and the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People.
• The Same Chance Report — As I Am's annual state of the community report on autistic life in Ireland

Contact As I Am

https://asiam.ie

17-21 Temple Road, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, A94 DN40

If you would prefer to contact As I Am by phone to discuss your query, please call (01) 445 3203

Leading with Hearts and Minds is a podcast from the National Clinical Leadership Centre for Nursing and Midwifery.

Two careers. And a conversation recorded at exactly the right moment.

Finn Gallagher's career began in a locked ward in Letterkenny in 1953. He retired as Chief Nursing Officer, having helped reshape mental health services in Ireland from the ground up. His son Paul followed in his footsteps into nursing and is currently the Regional Director of Nursing and Midwifery — a role he will leave later this year.

In this episode, Marie Kilduff sits down with both of them — together, for the first time on the podcast.

What emerges is rarer than a career retrospective. It's a conversation about the decisions that define a life — recorded while Paul is still in post, and Finn can still remember what it felt like to be where his son is now. A young nurse choosing a ward over the Gardaí, guided by a single question from an older man he had rarely met. A father stepping back from his son's first day so the son could find his own footing. A wife's four words that settled a move that felt like emigrating.

Paul returns to Leading with Hearts and Minds, having previously shared his own story. This time, Finn is in the room — and what passes between them says as much as anything either man puts into words.

For anyone in nursing or healthcare leadership, this episode carries something quietly useful: what influence looks like when it's patient, what mentorship looks like when it asks rather than tells, and what it means to hand something on.

In this episode:

• Why Finn nearly joined the Gardaí — and what stopped him
• Paul's memory of his father at work, and what it planted in him
• The decision to move from Donegal to Limerick — and the conversation that made it possible
• What both men would say to the next generation of nursing leaders

Subscribe to Leading with Hearts and Minds wherever you get your podcasts.

Inclusive Leadership Is a Leadership Practice, Not a Programme, with Síle Walsh

What is the difference between organisational diversity and social diversity, and why does that distinction matter in the workplace?

In this episode of Leading with Hearts and Minds, Margaret Williams speaks with inclusive leadership expert and author Síle Walsh about inclusion as a leadership responsibility rather than a checklist or initiative.

The conversation begins by distinguishing between organisational diversity and social diversity, before exploring inclusive leadership as a core leadership capability that supports performance, psychological safety, and better outcomes for people and organisations.

Drawing on research, professional practice, and lived experience, Síle discusses purpose, co-creation, reasonable accommodation, and why focusing on needs rather than labels leads to more effective workplaces, particularly in complex healthcare environments.

In this episode of Leading with Hearts and Minds, Marie Kilduff speaks with Professor Michael West about what compassionate leadership really means in healthcare and why it matters now more than ever.

Drawing on decades of research, Professor West explains how leadership behaviour shapes organisational culture, staff wellbeing, and patient outcomes. He challenges the idea that compassion is soft or optional, arguing instead that it requires courage, accountability, and a willingness to address difficult issues such as chronic workload, toxic behaviours, and system pressures.

The conversation explores the ABC conditions for compassion: human needs, autonomy, belonging, and competence, and how creating the right conditions for staff leads to innovation, psychological safety, and better care. Professor West also reflects on self-compassion, presence, teamwork, and the simple leadership question that can transform cultures: How can I help?

This episode offers practical insight for clinicians, managers, and system leaders seeking to build compassionate cultures that support staff and improve patient care.

Professor Michael West CBE  

Professor of Organisational Psychology, Lancaster University Management School

Senior Visiting Fellow, The King’s Fund 

 Book: West, M. A. (2021). Compassionate Leadership: Sustaining Wisdom, Humanity and Presence in Health and Social Care, published by Swirling Leaf Press.