Lessons from the Salutogenic Rebels: Early-Career Leadership in Health Promotion

Photo by: Lenneke Vaandrager

Posted by: Kristel Polhuis

In the world of health promotion, early-career researchers often find themselves navigating both professional and personal challenges.The opportunity to take on leadership roles—despite their inherent complexities—can be incredibly empowering during this phase. As the first generation of Salutogenic Rebels, we (Sanne Hiemstra, Veerle Cannemeijer, Heidi Marie Meling, Yen Pham, Ayse Deliktas, Sarah Michaud, Jaroslaw Rakoczy, Leah Rosen, and Kristel Polhuis) had the unique chance to organize an early-career event at the Salutogenesis Conference in Lodz, Poland June 2024. Through this experience, we gained valuable insights that not only shaped our understanding of leadership, but also gave us a fresh perspective on how collaboration, creativity, and real-world challenges intersect in health promotion.

Building a Cohesive Team: The Power of Personal Connection

One of the most crucial lessons we learned was the importance of fostering a sense of unity from the start. When we first began, we made it a priority to get to know each other personally. This wasn’t just about learning who was good at what; it was about understanding each other’s motivations, supporting personal learning goals, and creating a supportive, open environment where each Rebel felt heard.

It’s easy to underestimate how this personal connection can drive the success of a project. Through this connection, the work felt less like a burden and more like a shared mission. At times, we even turned to each other for advice on navigating the challenges of academia, which helped normalize the pressures we all face. Our team name “Salutogenic Rebels” and our carefully drafted mission statement—a guiding document created early in the process—allowed us to stay aligned while also giving each Rebel the space to inject their ambitions, creativity and ideas. In addition, there was always room for fun and humour during our working session and joint WhatsApp group – this made the overall energy within the group pleasant, supporting and constructive. 

The Balancing Act: Creativity and Practicality

Our goal was to design an event that was both interactive and meaningful. As early-career professionals, we wanted to break free from the typical, rigid formats and explore more innovative approaches. The result was a conference full of diverse sessions that creatively encouraged participation, learning, and equal and genuine connections between researchers at all career stages.

While this freedom was empowering, we quickly realized the importance of balancing creativity with practicality. At times, our ambitious ideas led to a heavier workload than anticipated. In hindsight, we might have been more strategic in narrowing down our ideas to focus on the most impactful ones. Nevertheless, the experience taught us how creativity could thrive in an environment of trust—something we hope to carry into future endeavors.

Clarifying Expectations and Communication

Another key takeaway from our experience was the importance of setting clear expectations and ensuring smooth communication throughout the planning process – both within the team and in coordination with the broader conference organization. While we had a clear vision for the event, at times we found ourselves running into issues with timing and role expectations. To mitigate this, we recommend that future Rebels take the time to explicitly outline each member’s responsibilities, including the time investment required. This also means building a strong connection with the overall conference organizers, so that practical constraints — such as time slots, space availability, and budget — are acknowledged and taken into account early on.

In our case, we learned the hard way that an early check-in on timelines and task delegation would have made the process smoother.  Ensuring that everyone is on the same page—regarding both time commitment and availability—can significantly reduce stress and help create a more positive working atmosphere.

Inclusion and Accessibility: Navigating Financial Realities

A critical aspect of organizing any event is navigating financial considerations. We faced the challenge of handling speaker fees, travel costs, and budgeting—issues that became even more complex given the diversity of backgrounds within our group.

One lesson we learned was the importance of transparency around financial matters from the very beginning. Whether it’s about travel funding and conference fees for the organizing committee, or budgeting for the event itself, clarity is key. We discovered that having a clear understanding of available resources ensures equal opportunities within the organizing team, helps to plan better and makes participants and speakers feel respected and valued. This can go a long way in making an event more inclusive and accessible to a wider range of people, including those without institutional financial support.

Creative Freedom vs. Structure: Finding the Right Balance

It’s clear that creativity can’t thrive in an overly structured environment, yet too much freedom can lead to chaos. Our experience taught us that it’s essential to strike a balance. For future organizing teams, we suggest creating a structured yet flexible framework. Establishing an explicit mission statement, with clear milestones and deadlines helps manage the logistics, while allowing room for creative ideas to flourish.

In retrospect, having one or two Rebels based at the university or conference venue proved to be beneficial for handling the logistical challenges more efficiently. This on-the-ground support ensured that practical concerns were addressed and that communication with the broader organizing committee was clear and effective.

Looking Ahead: Empowering the Next Generation of Rebels

Despite the challenges we faced, our experience as the Salutogenic Rebels was overwhelmingly positive. It empowered us not only to develop leadership and collaboration skills, but also to understand the impact that health promotion professionals can have on a global scale. Through this process, we learned that early-career professionals have the power to shape the future of health promotion, especially when supported by a collaborative, trusting environment. 

For those considering taking on leadership roles in scientific events or tasks in early stages of your career (for example, for the upcoming Global Salutogenic Conference 2026!), we encourage you to embrace the lessons we’ve learned: prioritize personal connection while defining a collaborative mission, balancing creativity with practicality and transparent communication. The process of organizing the conference and seeing our efforts come together at the conference in Lodz was a salutogenic experience that empowered our individual (and collective) sense of coherence: prioritizing personal connection provided meaningfulness to our experience, balancing creativity with practicality ensured manageability and transparent communication contributed to comprehensibility. However, more importantly, this experience mobilized an important resource: a new international network with genuine connections, fostering future career opportunities.

As we continue to build on our experiences, we hope to inspire the next generation of Rebels to continue pushing boundaries and innovating health promotion conferences!

About the Author
This post was written by dr. Kristel Polhuis, researcher and lecturer at Wageningen University & Research. She was part of the first generation of the Salutogenic Rebels, together with Sanne Hiemstra, Veerle Cannemeijer, Heidi Marie Meling, Yen Pham, Ayse Deliktas, Sarah Michaud, Jaroslaw Rakoczy, and Leah Rosen. This blog is based on our collective feedback sessions and paper about our experiences in working together in this group for one year. ChatGPT was used to convey the reflection paper and analysis into a blog post.