Highland Leadership Chronicles: From Delegating to Leading from "within" – Focus on “Who not How”.

Have you ever entertained the thought that this is going to be a tricky venture? That overwhelm is a given on this novel journey? Or even that despite the vote of confidence (thankfully!) that this will be quite the stretch opportunity…

As I interviewed for the role of chief hospitalist at #Highland towards the end of Spring 2019, less than a year after joining the team, the flurry of emotions that had, by now, become all too familiar over the course of the preceding year – with the arrival of a double bundle of joy, to struggling through a Master’s degree to adjusting to a new hospital setting and a bustling new team culture full of color as you might have already discovered from my prior articles in this series – had come full circle! The interview was a sort of formality, capping off a string of prior conversations and moves within the team and regional leadership structure for my hospital site, #Highland.

A thought stuck with me as this all unfolded; that I will need all the help that I can get on this new journey and that I needed to ask some specific folks; think #HighlandLinchpin, for help as well as galvanize a more holistic support from the team to execute effectively as a leader. While I had some sense of the advice of mentors and friends in this regard, I had no idea of the extent of the help that I would need nor the capacity of the group to journey together and the resulting impact especially when things, seemingly, were not going well.

Many of the wins (in hindsight) that we had during this time was the result of many heads weighing in – and the collective effort within and outside of our core hospitalist team and across the hospital system, embracing delegated capacity and opting in – to lead from ‘within’ the system to improve the odds of success for not only the hospitalist team but for many teams across the hospital system.

Jesse Sostrin, PhD, PCC wrote in his Harvard Business Review article: “To Be a Great Leader, You Have to Learn How to Delegate Well”, that “one of the most difficult transitions for leaders to make is the shift from?doing?to?leading.” My experience was no different even though I had the benefit of seasoned mentors and advisors, and a team that already worked very well together to achieve shared goals thanks to a strong prevailing culture enshrined by formidable prior leadership. This new role was, in essence, fertile ground for me to learn and hopefully, grow. This was an opportunity to learn to focus on the people around me – what Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy described as a mindset shift of “Who not How” in their book with the same title, and to learn to seek help as you think through a problem or an opportunity; to learn to delegate and to empower others to lead from ‘within’ the group/system and to, in essence, “inspire their commitment” to co-lead with me.

While there are many precepts that inform delegation as a strategic leadership function, there are 3 essential lessons that I have come away with on my own journey so far thanks to insights from mentors and friends that I hope will be relevant and useful to others.

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1.????Know your people.

At the core of delegating and setting up your team for growth as individuals and success with the delegated authority and responsibility is the knowledge of the individual’s pre-existing capacity, strengths, and interests. These unique insights might be obscure at first, especially as a new leader, oftentimes though, you can recognize those with significant social capital on the team and lean on them to share some of their experiences with you and help you navigate this essential milestone on your leadership journey. ??

Deep knowledge of one’s team is essential to an insightful match between the intention, task, or project at hand and the individual or group of individuals. It also informs the approach to inspiring a sense of responsibility by communicating in a manner that will foster confidence and optimally address the level of engagement that will enhance the likelihood of success with the common goals.

2.????Empower your team.

Having carefully matched one of your team members or a small group to an intention that has evolved into a task or even a project, give them the space to grow – encourage them to take ownership for the reasoning behind the project as well as its implementation. Delegate an appropriate and agreed-upon level of decision-making authority and responsibility. Leave adequate room for bidirectional communication that fosters understanding and clarity around shared goals.

3.????Trust the process.

While delegating might appear to be about the short-term wins primarily and expanding your leadership capacity, it is important to frame delegating around the ‘Whos’, the people around you and about developing their leadership acumen and capacity, fostering transformational relationships, and expanding the impact of the leader-team collaboration. The major wins may not be apparent in the short term but prioritizing the growth of others through the power of delegating and encouraging a culture of leading from ‘within’ the group is a path to long-term team success and resilience.

At #Highland in 2019, we had the opportunity to participate in #SoundPhysicians’ National Clinical Innovation Sessions (NCIS) through a healthcare Quality Improvement Project that lends itself as a case study in the idea of focusing on ‘Who Not How’ and the immense potential of the strategic leadership function of delegating and empowering others.

Together with nurse leaders, Lynda Attaway and Leah Richardson-Andrews on the #Highland team at the time, I had the opportunity to collaborate with 2 distinguished colleagues on a project focused on reducing readmissions related to Congestive Heart Failure, Asafo-Agyei Kwabena and Dr. Vinod Matli that ended up in the top 10 projects nationally within the organization. Both colleagues worked on the idea from its very conception, having recognized the clinical performance challenge and the opportunity to improve outcomes for our patients; worked assiduously with a group of mentors and collaborators from across #SoundPhysicians and locally within the hospital system; and executed through an iterative process – learning and growing along the way – until its eventual completion with demonstrable value for all key stakeholders.

Asafo-Agyei Kwabena and Dr. Vinod Matli have since gone on to make the team and the #Highland community proud on other fronts including multiple journal publications and presentations by Dr. Vinod Matli and a major GI conference award for Asafo-Agyei Kwabena . This is the potential of this mindset shift – ‘Who not How’ as it is manifested in the strategic leadership function of delegating and collaborating.

If you are like many leaders in healthcare, you probably value the import of statistics as an additional data point to support your work. Consider this; the team at Development Dimensions International, Inc. summarized findings from the paper published by Lee, Willis, and Tian, “Empowering leadership: A meta-analytic examination of incremental contribution, mediation, and moderation” in the Journal of Organizational Behavior which highlights the impact of delegating and empowering leadership styles on overall team performance as follows.

• “Team members are more creative and are 3.9 times more likely to produce innovative/creative outcomes.
• Team members take more initiative and are 4.2 times more likely to go above their job description.
• Team members perform better and are 2.2 times more likely to be considered high performers.
• The team has higher standards and is 1.9 times more likely to have high performance standards.”

Much more than these numbers are the transformational relationships and the collective impact on your shared purpose that delegating sets up our teams for. It is a worthwhile venture and a strategic leadership function that we all ought to cultivate. As you continue your own leadership journey, consider delegating as a matter of priority, earlier rather than later, on your journey, and invest in knowing your people first – what makes them tick, which conversations energize them – and entrust them with delegated capacity to foster their growth. And finally, trust the process – the windfall is likely many moons away.

References

1. “How to Delegate Work and Why It’s Important for Leaders by DDI Team” (2021) https://www.ddiworld.com/. Development Dimensions International, Inc., 27 January. Available at: https://www.ddiworld.com/blog/how-to-delegate-work (Accessed: February 21, 2023).

2. Lee, A., Willis, S. and Tian, A.W. (2017) “Empowering leadership: A meta-analytic examination of incremental contribution, mediation, and moderation,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(3), pp. 306–325. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2220.

3. Sostrin, J. (2017) “To Be a Great Leader, You Have to Learn How to Delegate Well,” https://hbr.org, 10 October. Available at: https://hbr.org/2017/10/to-be-a-great-leader-you-have-to-learn-how-to-delegate-well (Accessed: February 21, 2023).

4. Sullivan, D. and Hardy, B. (2018) WhoNotHow: Your single formula for achieving bigger goals through accelerating teamwork. Toronto, Ontario: The Strategic Coach Inc.?