Leadership Values

Writing in the 2010 Leadership Values book, I wrote:

By allowing positive values to influence you, you are also allowing better judgment into your style.

As you enter 2015, ask yourself the following questions-

• What do I value? Do these values assist my leadership activities or hinder them?
• Do I have values or guiding principles that direct my behavior?
• Do I have personal values that may conflict with what I need to do as a leader?
• Have I ever written a narrative describing my leadership style? Did I do it primarily to impress a search consultant or a potential employer, or did I do it to evaluate my strengths and weaknesses?
• What is my definition of leadership?
• List several successful leaders. What do they all have in common?
• What are the values or guiding principles that successful leaders possess?
• Continue to consider this question – Do you view leadership as an act, a process, or simply a skill?

Leaders- Born or Made? Another Look

Are leaders born or made?

Yes – to both questions!

To start 2015 right, consider how effective your leadership has been. My colleague, Andy Garman and I finished our second edition of Exceptional Leadership: 16 Critical Competencies for Healthcare Executives (Health Administration Press, 2015) and wrote about this “born or made” question:

We can all think of people who seem to have been born to lead. Every organization almost always has at least a couple such leaders. They stand out because they give the impression that they can make things happen and that they are going to succeed at anything. We often assume the success of these leaders long before their performance results come in.

Many other leaders become exceptional over time, through perseverance and attention to their own development. They identify their strengths and development needs, find opportunities to gain the experience they need, and seek out mentors who can help them make the most of these crucible experiences.

For both groups -the “born” and the “made” - the path to exceptional leadership is crossed faster with a good roadmap. A good competency model will provide just such a roadmap.

And in my 2010 book, Leadership in Healthcare: Essential Values and Skills, Second Edition (Health Administration Press, 2010), I wrote:

I contend that: (1) leadership is both inherent and learned, and (2) leadership values and skills are interrelated in that you cannot have one without the other. Numerous research studies suggest that many leadership skills and traits are the result of heredity.6 In this vein, we can argue that those so-called born leaders who develop certain values early in life also tend to exhibit strong leadership characteristics and skills early. Others who did not develop these values early must cultivate them first to enhance their leadership capabilities, which is a belief that many managers, executives, and consultants—myself included—hold.

So as you begin 2015, realize the importance of developing leadership skills. Learn the competencies that truly make a difference, enhance your self-awareness, and grow.

What Questions Do You Ask in Interviews?

I like Mark Murphy’s material a lot (https://www.leadershipiq.com/). He gives a lot of credible and fundamental counsel. One of my favorites relates to interviewing questions. Read the excerpt below: 

“I want to address the questions that interviewers ask that are useless to their hiring process. Here are some of the biggies:

Tell me about yourself.

What are your strengths?

What are your weaknesses? Etc.

These are not necessarily inherently bad questions, but they are cliché, wherein lies their flaw. When you ask questions candidates are expecting, you’re guaranteed to get canned, rehearsed answers that waste everyone’s time. There is a book called “101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions.” Every hiring manager should have a book like this on hand.

If you find yourself asking questions that appear in this book, you probably want to rethink them, because you can bet your candidates have read the book, too.

Another bad question is the hypothetical question. (e.g. If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?) Now, if you knew, for example, that every high performer in your organization said cheetah and every low performer said elephant this might be a valid question. But until you know that, these are just quirky, nonsensical questions that are useless to your hiring process.”

See the following for the full article -

http://www.leadershipiq.com/materials/Hiring_For_Attitude_1.pdf

What questions do you ask in interviews?

Are they valid predictors of future success?

How do you know they are valid predictors?

Self Awareness and Selecting Leaders

I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking more about interviewing and assessing and selecting leaders. One of the topical areas I have reflected upon is the idea of self awareness. I found this on the Forbes blog site and it struck me that it is certainly true that there are many different meanings of self awareness.

I have found, however, that this term is interpreted in widely different ways.  For some it means being introspective about yourself, and especially about your emotions and what causes you to be “up” or “down” in your outlook and behavior. For others it means being aware of your personal values and life goals. (If you discovered your house was burning, for example, what would you save?) Still others think it means being clear about the kinds of people you like and dislike and which activities bring you pleasure or boredom.

We take a different view. For us, the most important element of self-awareness, especially for those who lead organizations, is a clear understanding of the impact they are having on the people around them.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jackzenger/2014/04/17/the-singular-secret-for-a-leaders-success-self-awareness/

I also suggest those interested read the HBR blog entitled, “How Leaders Become Self-Aware” by Anthony K. Tjan (July 19, 2012).

Assessing and Selecting Physician Leaders

Because of the large number of requests regarding better ways to select physician leaders, I want to note in this blog that in the "Physician Leadership" section of this website, a free copy of Chapter 12, "How To Assess and Select Physician Leaders," is available for review.

The entire book, Developing Physician Leaders for Successful Clinical Integration, published by Heath Administration Press in 2013, is available at the American College of Healthcare Executives website - or of course on Amazon - .

https://www.ache.org/publications/product.aspx?pc=2228

Physicians as Managers and as Leaders - Difference?

Physician in Management vs. Leadership Positions,”

 Leadership and Management Are Not the Same – and in physician administrative positions, the different is key.

 “Although often used interchangeably, leadership and management are not the same. The fundamental core of leadership is change, while the core of management is ensuring there is order and consistency in day-to-day processes.”

The above quote is from an article I wrote for the September/October 2014 Healthcare Executive. The article, “Physician in Management vs. Leadership Positions,” provides brief insight into the differences between management and leadership positions especially as they relate to physicians in those positions.

Simple learning point: Some physicians can do both; some do one better than the other. It is important to realize this when placing physicians into administrative positions.

Blind Spots and Self Awareness and Physician Leaders

In our Second Edition of Exceptional Leadership: 16 Critical Competencies for Healthcare Leaders (Health Administration Press, 2015), Andy Garman and I wrote about self awareness:

“Most leaders have vulnerabilities, or blind spots, on either side of the balance. On the selfish side, we have the temptations associated with leadership roles. As you reach higher levels, your ability to influence the resources you receive, even your own salary, expands, and the line between purposeful influence and influence for its own sake becomes difficult to see. Others, such as your direct reports, will feel greater pressure to curry your favor and to convince you that everything is going great (regardless of how things are really going). The selfish temptation is to lose your objectivity and begin believing your own press releases.”

I frequently work with physician leaders who, despite being strong clinicians and remarkable individuals, have many blind spots. Often the result of few people willing to challenge them, this is one area I point out to physician leaders who ask me how they can be better at leadership.

Physician Leader vs Manager

In Healthcare Executive (Sept/Oct 2014 – American College of Healthcare Executives), I wrote in the article, “Physicians in Management vs. Leadership Positions” - 

Organizations that understand the difference between management and leadership roles can better support the success of physicians who move out of their clinical practices and into different roles within healthcare. For example, physicians who are more hands-on in their work and prefer immediate feedback are better cast in management-oriented jobs. In contrast, physicians who have a sense of the longer-term future, enjoy strategy and think in broader and more systems-oriented terms are more suited for leadership roles. 

Careful where you put that physician leader – or physician manager.

Physician Managers and Leaders and Ebola

I spent the day with a group of physician leaders. Among the topics of Ebola, EMR, physician code of conduct, we also touched on the very different jobs that physician leaders hold. This ended up with an in-depth discuss on the differences between management and leadership. This topic is very near and dear to me and I think a firm understanding of it is critical for those who work with physicians leaders.

To begin, let me be clear – the words are often used interchangeably and the word leadership often also means leadership activities. However, I think a deep understanding of the differences can help avoid many problems when physician may be put into the wrong positions.

Dr. Jacque Sokolov and I wrote in Developing Physician Leaders for Successful Clinical Integration (Health Administration Press, 2013):

Management and leadership are different. This bears repeating—there is a dif­ference between management and leadership. Yet most books and articles either (a) use the words interchangeably (as even we have done in some places in this book) or (b) portray management as bad and leadership as good. In this chapter, we strive to use the terms separately and distinctly. Moreover, we believe that both are positive.

Management is a core activity of running an organization. Management is a function and activity whereby individuals plan and organize work, projects, and operations. They use budgets, controls, and metrics and direct the work of others in achieving this work. Management is focused mostly on the immediate.

Leadership is future oriented. Leadership, on the other hand, is more abstract and focuses more on the future. The functions and activities of leadership pertain to developing needed change to meet the future. In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey (1990) says, “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”

Kotter (1996) states, “Management is a set of processes that can keep a com­plicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, and problem solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.”

Before putting a physician into a management positions when he or she has strong leadership proclivities – or the opposite – consider these differences. Interestingly, our group concluded that the work involving Ebola involves both leadership and management. 

Salute to Our Medical Service Corps Officers

How great to have spent two days with a large group of Medical Service Corps officers the past week at Brooke Armey Medical Center (BAMC) and Fort Sam Houston. These men and women in uniform take care of our wounded warriors. These are very special people and they put themselves in harms way to help our soldiers, airmen, and sailors. I was able to work with this group on various leadership points and we finished with a focus on how they might better present themselves to our civilian leaders in health care for leadership potions in the civilian world. These leaders operate in situations that are very similar to our civilian world and there are many examples of many of these leaders making very successful transitions to leadership roles in hospitals and health systems.

I thank and salute these men and women in uniform and greatly respect all that they do to protect our freedom.