Hopefully sooner rather than later the healthcare industry will begin to look at leadership development as a necessary commitment and investment, equally or more important as the investments made in brick and mortar capital. The industry remains woefully behind other industries in systemically developing the leadership talents of their workforce, especially at the leadership level.As executive leaders ask yourself these questions:
1. In the last 3 years how many of your senior leadership staff have attended an external leadership behavior skills development program?
2. In the last 3 years how many of your senior leadership staff have attended an internal leadership behavior skills development program?
3. In the last 3 years how many of your senior leadership staff have had a 360-degree feedback survey?
4. In the last 3 years has your organization conducted a Talent Review of the leadership staff, where there was an exchange and debate about the performance and potential of individuals, difficult decisions were discussed and made, and staff development actions planned?
5. In the last 3 years how many of your leadership staff have had a performance review where the strengths and improvement opportunities of the individual were discussed and a development plan was put in place.
You may be shocked to realize that in other industries the lack of any of the five above is unheard of.
Leaders bring their unique self into the workplace – good and bad. It is important that this uniqueness is developed and then recognized, accepted and valued by peers, leaders and subordinates. It is these differences that provide a range of skills and abilities that we can maximize to their fullest potential and can make a difference in the performance of the organization. An organization needs to be bold and embrace new and differing ideas regarding leadership to stay ahead of the competition and survive. It is these varying and different perspectives that allow us to grow. The solution is to embrace a broad-based talent management agenda.
Let’s look at the issue of Talent Management in a different way. In your organization what system or processes are in place to insure positions such as nursing leaders, department managers, administrators and clinical leaders know the following:
• How to manage performance and how performance management contributes to patient care.
• How to give constructive criticism, how to issue discipline, how to reward good work.
• How do deal with difficult employees.
• How to inspire others, how to motivate others.
• How to facilitate good labor/management relations.
• How to become Essential, Exceptional and Ethical Leaders™.
The healthcare industry must begin to learn lessons of experience from other industries and realize that on the subject of leadership development it is no longer acceptable to say healthcare is different, we don’t need it. The fact is we all need to manage and develop the talent within our organizations.
