The Brutal Truth About Leadership (and why you should step up and lead anyway)

There is a crisis in leadership that no one wants to talk about and it is stressing the culture in healthcare that is already stretched thin. Deloittes Global Human Capital Trends report for 2015 revealed a shocking 6% of top executives felt, 'very ready,' to handle the job.  In healthcare, turnover is higher than the industry average and many reports cite a lack of leaders to fill the pipeline to plan for the future.

The turbulent environment post Affordable Care Act, reimbursement changes, increasing cyber threats, need for more innovative solutions puts pressure on leaders to engage specific skill sets at the expense of others. While leaders have adapted and gotten better at doing more with less, those skills needed for long term success have been sacrificed. Developing talent, coaching, driving change are skills that have been put on the shelf risking the potential in many future leaders and a culture of engagement.

The impact of this has been an erosion of employee's trust in leadership. Without effective communication, trust is lost. A recent study identified the breakdown in communication as failure to share information and communicate the impact of various changes along with a lack of clarity linking performance goals with strategy. When staff do not understand why they are doing what they are doing, you lose engagement, trust and cooperation.

As leaders work from a crisis mode, the higher level function of clear communication, critical to leadership effectiveness, is sacrificed and replaced with short commands, delegation and focus away from the most important functions of leadership. With so many demands on leaders,  it becomes critical to delegate; without coaching for performance and continued development of leaders in the skills that will sustain the organization, there is a domino effect, and emerging leaders end up without the skills required to accomplish important goals. 

Leadership effectiveness is the top predictor of engagement.

Without the right kind of development, the talent pool of emerging leaders flounder, followers continue to lose trust, leave the organization or worse, stay, and sabotage the best intentions. In addition, to be able to accomplish the challenges for a more innovative and agile workforce and culture, the traditional top down organizational hierarchy needs to use more cross functional teams. This intensifies the demand to communicate better, problem solve and drive change, skills that need to be developed in current and future leaders.

I have many clients who have been beat up in the culture wars that exist in many organizations. I help them activate their resilience and get back in touch with the reasons they wanted to lead:

1. The Joy of Empowering. You get to coach and mentor others. Being able to build confidence and watch people exceed their own expectations is rewarding.
2.  The Joy of Accomplishment. You are able to move change through collaboration and teamwork.
3. The Joy of Service. You get to define and hold the vision for services that will enhance the lives of others, both staff and patients.

Leadership has its challenges and most leaders acknowledge that with the right plan, you can develop key skills in resilient thinking to sustain your efforts to make a difference in your organization.

Next week: No Margin for Error: Why Leadership Development Hasn't Worked

Cynthia Howard RN, CNC, PhD, Focus & Performance Consultant, works with organizations and individuals to develop resilient thinking for consistent high performance leadership. Creator of, the Resilient Leader System, training program in emotional intelligence and resilience. Currently in certification training for green belt in lean and six sigma, Cynthia utilizes a process approach to people problems. www.vibrantradianthealth.com

www.vipleadershipretreat.com October 22 2016, Blooming MN. The Resilient Leader Seminar, training in emotional intelligence.