The true and defining qualities of leadership

Like many of you, I’m often running (er clicking) from virtual meeting to virtual meeting throughout the day. It’s indicative of the times, having transitioned from standing in front of large groups to using technology to connect with respective leaders throughout our organization.

The one question that continues to arise — even in this challenging era — is what are the true and defining qualities of leadership? This may be a difficult question in today’s age, especially as we witnessed some of the best and very worst of leadership this past year.

To me, leadership is about building trust and promoting unity. It’s about decency and having influence. It’s about getting people to believe in what you believe in. Your colleagues will follow if they feel connected to your message and the actions you take. It’s essential to so many fields, including health care — leaders need the ability to influence the behavior of others.

But how can you achieve this? Regardless of whether you are working virtually or holding small in-person meetings, the strategy is the same. You must believe it yourself. If you are passionate about your actions and demonstrate compassion and understanding, it resonates. People connect. It’s that feeling you are selling.

Leadership is also about humility. Don’t take yourself too seriously. As a CEO, I view myself as the captain of the team. I am still a player, but the person the team respects and looks to when things go awry. Using a sports metaphor: Games are won and lost in the locker room. We rise together and we will go down together. You need that connectedness with your team to move as one, regardless of the outcome.

To be successful, leaders need focus…pure, unadulterated focus. My work is about managing complexity and ambiguity, and the minute I am sidetracked or distracted, I won’t do my job well. And I’ve followed a few strategies to keep me on point. They may work for you, too.

1.    Return to core questions: Ask yourself the following questions when facing a decision or choice, whether it is about technology, research, construction or any other issue: Will this be good for the people we serve? Will people be better off if we do this? If every choice comes back to patients, families and our community, I stay on track.

2.    Know what you aren’t: Part of finding focus is declining some invitations, even if they seem intriguing. Saying “no” doesn’t mean you oppose change or innovation. Quite frankly it’s just the opposite — saying “no” to business opportunities that would distract us can help keep our focus.

3.    Consistency is good: Society has eight-second attention spans (yes, eight is the norm). And in the digital age, distractions abound. A few years ago, a popular college football coach afforded his players a “social media break” during practice. There couldn’t be a bigger distraction to a team trying to remain focused and win competitive football games. Needless to say, he threw the idea out of the window pretty quickly. In fact, some coaches today ban social media altogether during the season.

4.    Be optimistic, all of the time: Leaders must be deeply hopeful about their people. It’s crucial that this optimism is steady. You can sense when your boss is confident in you, and its obvious during both good and bad times. The COVID crisis is a good example of how optimism can carry you through. Whether it was walking the hallways of intensive care units or leading my executive team, my message of hope was consistent, accepted and permeated through the organization.

5.    Think before you hit “send”: I find email to be very unproductive, inefficient and impersonal. Too many times, it opens a door to churn out a stream of consciousness without really thinking it through. If someone sends me an idea over email and asks what I think of it, I rarely respond in kind. Communicating over email makes it difficult to fully understand an issue. Instead, sit down and look at it from all sides before making decisions.

Decision-making is an important aspect of our jobs as leaders. It’s on us to be consistent and continuously doing the right thing, even if it isn’t popular. Remember, true leadership is about engaging your colleagues enough to follow you. You can’t pretend. Be real and find ways for everyone to contribute.