Developing Leadership Skills for Healthcare’s Future — and Yours
Today there’s no shortage of leadership resources if you want to level-up your leadership game. From books and podcasts, to master classes and mentorship, there are literally thousands of options.
We all understand leadership’s impact on team performance. Healthcare leadership adds another critically important layer: impact on patients. For physicians, this is where the rubber hits the proverbial road. Now more than ever, strong and strategic healthcare leadership is shaping the future of healthcare and making a significant impact on the quality of patient care.
It’s no longer enough for physicians to be effective team leaders. The pace of change, challenge, and opportunity in healthcare requires physicians to step up into collaborative, future-focused leadership roles and activities that will redefine the healthcare landscape in both the short- and long-term.
Essential Healthcare Leadership Skills
When building your leadership skills, where should you focus to maximize your impact not only on patient care and the healthcare landscape, but for your own career advancement as well? Start with these essential healthcare leadership skills.
Adaptability is a mission-critical skill for today’s healthcare leader. Maintaining resilience, decisiveness, and focus amidst challenge and unpredictability is crucial to successfully weathering a storm — and developing future solutions. Leaders modeling this skill also help guide others through stressful situations, inspiring trust and giving them the reassurance and confidence they need to do their own jobs and make collaborative contributions to a team. Additionally, adaptability is foundational to a timely and consequential modern healthcare concern: managing mental health issues like stress and burnout, and helping others do the same.
Innovative thinking is the key to healthcare progress. Healthcare urgently needs innovative leaders who can leverage opportunities and address — and resolve — obstacles and complexities. An innovative mindset is built from a variety of skills, including creativity, problem-solving, strategic vision, and curiosity. Innovative healthcare leaders seek new solutions that challenge the status quo. According to a recent Northeastern University article titled Effective Leadership in Healthcare: 5 Essential Traits, healthcare leaders should be guiding healthcare in the direction they feel it should go, identifying things about healthcare that are in need of correction and guiding us toward solutions.
Collaboration is a game-changer for today’s healthcare leader. Thinking bigger and bringing more voices to the table is key to breaking down silos and making real improvements in patient care, research, regulation, legislation, insurance, and more. Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and meaningful change is the direct result of joining diverse and dynamic skills, experiences, opinions, and insights together to achieve a common goal.
How To Develop Healthcare Leadership Skills
As we mentioned at the start of this article, there are literally thousands of ways to strengthen and add to your own suite of leadership skills. Here’s a list of ways to jump-start your own progress:
Personal: professional leadership coaching, networking, mentorship (being a mentor and/or being a mentee)
Hands-On: volunteering, committee participation, engaging in an issue or cause
Education: continuing education courses, seminars, conferences, workshops — the American Medical Association’s Ed Hub offers a variety of leadership CME courses
On Your Own: master classes, TED talks, books/audiobooks, podcasts, magazines, journals, social media — try Dr. Elsie Koh’s TEDxBrownU Talk A Doctor’s Guide to Leadership, or Dr. Carol Dweck’s TED Talk on growth mindset (mentioned by Koh) The Power of Believing You Can Improve (which has close to 17 million views!)
One final tip: Look to leaders in your own circle that you admire — in healthcare as well as outside of healthcare. Find out what strategies and resources they have used, and still use, to stay sharp and continue growing as leaders. Then follow their lead.
