Background Hospice care is part of an ever-changing healthcare landscape shaped by socioeconomic and technological developments, alongside policy and funding opportunities and challenges. In this environment, the need for embedding sustainable leadership capacity within hospices seems crucial. Studies often focus on leadership skills of executives or senior managers, but contemporary literature challenges conventional hierarchical models to explore the role of shared leadership approaches. Such approaches can enhance quality of care and innovation by fostering staff autonomy and professional development. To this end, St Columba’s Hospice Care introduced a new shared leadership approach.

Aim To outline the steps that the hospice has taken towards developing a shared leadership approach and explore its impact on service and strategy development to date.

Method Our shared leadership approach builds on principles of co-designing that are core to a person-centred practice ethos. Leaders from different teams were organized in leadership ‘clusters’. Meeting and reporting formats, as well as processes for offering open and dynamic feedback were revisited collectively, while aiming towards enhanced organisational communication and synergy. Ongoing evaluation has involved mapping of our shared leadership development steps over 18 months, a survey of leaders, and scheduled follow up evaluation inviting feedback from staff across the organisation.

Results Preliminary findings of our shared leadership approach indicate positive shifts in staff’s confidence in their skills as a leader, their communication with other leaders, and their engagement with co-designing processes of hospice services and initiatives. Case examples of service improvement and innovation are also documented in our quarterly reports as a tool for collective and transparent communication within and beyond the hospice.

Conclusion Shared leadership may enhance hospices’ capacity to navigate contemporary socioeconomic challenges and opportunities. Such approaches to leadership need to be bespoke while considering and responding to the enablers, barriers and drivers within each hospice’s micro and macro contexts.