Leadership Must-haves in the Hospital

Effective leadership is essential for optimal performance as a hospitalist or any other health care provider. Although exceptional leaders are necessary for frontline success, studies show the number of these types of individuals is dwindling due to demand versus population. This means the leaders currently in place in hospitals and health care organizations all over the globe have work to do through improvement and quality control.

Due to the nature of working in health care, leaders can face hurdles in their growth process. Because of unique challenges, rigorous workflows and hectic schedules, hospitalist executives can fall into the trap of feeling defenseless to the pressures surrounding them. When this happens, leaders can end up falling into a position of complacency and administrative oversight. There’s good news though; by taking steps to improve performance, work-life balance, and accountability, hospital and health care administrators can easily transition from an environment of lackluster leadership to remarkable authority.

Pay Attention to Performance

Leaders should set high performance expectations, hold annual reviews, and keep their team accountable for their productivity. Low-functioning leaders are those who have little knowledge of group performance and don’t analyze data that reflects areas needing improvement. Increasing performance and employee morale can include issuing satisfaction surveys and announcing and discussing the results via regular emails and newsletters as well as within team meetings. Once results are examined, a successful leader will recommend next steps and focus on ways to improve patient and employee satisfaction with the input from team members and colleagues. Effective leaders should also regularly recognize exceptional performance by communicating wins and achievements in public settings.

Don’t Settle

You can often tell the difference between a distinguished leader and one who is mediocre by the way they see themselves in their role. If an administrator doesn’t take their role seriously, they may miss out on opportunities for process improvement. Leaders should take every chance to join medical executive committees, attend leadership development courses, and take part in patient safety initiatives. In addition, by collaborating with other physicians and medical professionals, leaders can engage with other clinical departments and learn from their cohorts. When a leader takes a back-seat approach to their position, they won’t be seen as an authoritative and reliable figure. Luckily through multiple measures, as mentioned above, executives can differentiate themselves in a positive way.

Be a Key Decision Maker

Leaders should engage their teams in their decision-making process and should stand firm in whatever agreement they come to. By holding regularly scheduled team meetings with an engaging agenda, and focusing on problem-solving efforts, not only will leaders receive buy in from their team, but they will also feel confident in their final determinations. Additionally, leaders should stick to the same method of decision-making each time a new conclusion is to be made. Leaders can be seen as weak when they flip-flop back and forth instead of remaining consistent.

Encourage Others

Great leaders encourage others to be their absolute best. By providing support, humility, teamwork, and assistance with goal setting, team members will feel appreciated and respected. Fostering strengths and helping to improve weaknesses among the team is an absolute must for progress. A leader should also get to know their team and understand what drives them. By cultivating relationships, employees and colleagues will feel heard and valued.

Maintain a Positive Outlook

This is perhaps the most important leadership quality. By exhibiting a positive attitude even when things aren’t going exactly as expected, leaders can help their team remain positive no matter the circumstance. By displaying a negative attitude, team members are likely to develop low morale and become unmotivated. Instead of looking at a situation as something terrible, leaders should try to find ways to break down larger challenges into smaller, more manageable ones, and confront them one at a time with an optimistic outlook.

At the end of the day, leaders should recognize that they are in their position for a specific reason. By consistently looking for ways to improve, leaders can make a huge impact in the lives of not only their team, but colleagues, and patients as well.

Learn More About Advanced Care Hospitalists (ACH)

ACH is a Lakeland-based hospitalist group providing comprehensive patient care in community hospitals across Central Florida. Our providers are highly skilled, board-certified internal medicine specialists who are available around-the-clock to meet the care needs of patients from hospital admission through discharge. Post-discharge from the hospital, we continue overseeing patient care for 30 days.

We’ve found that continued care coordination ensures more accurate medication reconciliation, improved compliance with discharge plans, better scheduling of follow-up visits, and fewer hospital readmissions. Our providers do everything in their power to make sure our patients receive the compassionate and comprehensive care they need to promote healing and prevent a second hospital admission.

For more information about our services and our practice, please contact Advanced Care Hospitalists at 863-816-5884 or fill out a contact form online.