In healthcare, people have been watching their leaders over the course of this crisis. And, they are taking measure.
How are you showing up in the storm?
As a coach who comes from a career as a healthcare leader, I've been talking with my clients and their teams nationwide during the COVID-19 Crisis. Of all the insights I’ve gleaned from them, a sobering truth emerges:
Healthcare will never be the same after COVID-19.
Just as airline travel was never the same after 9/11, we will never be the same after this. Yet the lessons from this storm can make the future better than the past.
Let’s be clear, this time there’s no “bouncing back” to the way we were before.
Instead, there’s a panorama of novel ways for leaders to “bounce forward” to create a better future for their organizations.
I'm hearing tales of the best and the worst of leadership. Some leaders are rising to the challenge with wisdom, courage and hope and have inspired their teams to do what they’ve never done before. Sadly, other leaders are being observed to stumble, dither or over-control in the face of this storm.
The impact of leadership cannot be overstated - - for good or bad.
And just as healthcare will forever be changed, it’s important to note that healthcare leadership also must change.
It will be challenging for institutions to recover from the lost revenues, the furloughs and the fear that could keep patients away from the care they need in the months to come.
This time, as a leader you need to draw upon more than your usual turnaround skills. You will need to add new ways of thinking and behaving to lead in an era when facts are painfully slow to emerge.
More than ever, it will require teams, working within conflict, to discern the right path forward.
The path forward is based in the science of complex adaptive systems that has been applied in many industries as well as healthcare. It helps leaders understand how the mindset that made them successful in the past needs to be supplemented by new behaviors that this increasingly complex world demands. A recent article by Amy C. Edmondson in the Harvard Business Review, "What Hospitals Overwhelmed by Covid-19 Can Learn from Start Ups" likens it to the S-Curve in the world of start-ups.
There has never been a time when building healthy, effective leaders and teams - - quickly - - has been more urgently needed in healthcare.
