One of Britain's most influential women, Heather Rabbatts used examples from her vast leadership experience at Millwall and Lambeth to draw lessons for the NHS, speaking passionately about the importance of communication and respect when leading organisations through difficult periods of change.
She said the art of leadership and management essentially involves three elements.
1. Simplicity in what you're trying to convey and what you want people to do.
2. A sense of tactics and an ability to read the game, adapting to changing circumstances.
3. Communication and motivation.
"We all want to be treated with a sense of humanity. We want comunication not just information," she said.
"The leaders who are really successful know when to put an arm around someone, know when to be tough and know that no one person is above the team. When people become subversive, really good managers deal with those people."
With big, complicated organisations with multiple stakeholders and conflicting objectives, she said it was important to be able to articulate what success looks like.
She said: "Part of the art of leadership is about being able to express your stories in a language and a way that will be meaningful to your audiences...That narrative, that story, has to be the same story articulated in different ways to all of your different stakeholders."
Watch Heather's speech online.
Creating a narrative is one of the ten points on the NHS Employers policy board's checklist for economic recovery.