Leading Authentically

Being authentic can not only improve the quality of your interpersonal relationships but also your performance as a leader. Someone who is authentic is open and honest, transparent in one’s intentions and expectations, and practices his/her values consistently. Authentic leaders are genuine and true, and have a vision of success that is wholesome and optimistic. They also understand the importance of leading through demonstration and collaboration, rather than barking orders and demanding results. Truly authentic leaders translate words into actions – they stick to their convictions and set forth an operational plan to achieve better business results.

The Current Situation

The under representation of diverse leaders in senior leadership and clinical/research roles within the health industry is a hot topic as the industry responds to the implications of diversity and inclusion initiatives falling short of reaching their intended outcome for senior roles.

Nurse Leadership Development

Nurse turnover is an epidemic, occurring most frequently during the first year of employment when expectations of the work environment are not aligned to the realities of the job. Within the nursing profession, turnover rates exceed the norms set for other professions due to clinician burnout resulting from the demands of extensive work shifts and high patient acuity. In fact, the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) reported vacancy rates are as high as 8.3% nationwide among nurse managers. In a research study on organizational commitment and intent to stay, some of the strongest predictors of turnover were related to disempowerment, feelings of inadequacy, and feelings of being ignored. For nurse leaders who do choose to leave, the cost of finding and training a qualified replacement can be upwards of $42,000.

Leading Through Collaboration

A growing focus on partnerships has emerged in the field of leadership development, which emphasizes a new way of leading through collaboration and teaming at all levels within an organization, as well as across organizations. The partnership model has emerged in response to the growing complexities and demands of today’s changing workplace environment.¹ This new leadership model helps to distribute responsibility and engages team members to achieve strategic and operational goals.² All different types of partnerships are essential to an organization’s progress and overall success so the big question is: “How do we establish and maintain effective partnerships?”

Emotional Intelligence

Over the past two and a half decades, researchers have studied the positive impact of emotional intelligence (EI) on enhanced leadership performance. Yet, EI is still often underappreciated because many continue to associate the concept with “soft skills” unrelated to concrete business outcomes. As we leadership development practitioners well know, EI is a characteristic underlying much of the success of top business leaders. In today’s complex business environment, the key differentiator between good and great performers is their strength in social and emotional competencies.¹

The Impact of Coaching on Leadership

As the business environment becomes increasingly complex, executive coaching has gained popularity as an effective method for talent development. This is quite a departure from the past when coaching was viewed as a remedial means of fixing behavioral problems. A growing number of organizations are shifting their perspective as they begin to realize the positive impact of coaching on leadership performance. Executive coaching is a targeted way to significantly impact individual growth and organizational success. The ROI for the organization includes better engagement and productivity, higher profitability and reduction in costs.¹ Coaching also builds a leader’s emotional intelligence, a key driver of performance, and strengthens alignment with the organization’s mission and values.

Building High Performing Teams

It takes great leadership to build great teams. Whether in the workplace, professional sports, or your local community, team building requires a keen understanding of people, their strengths and weaknesses, and what motivates them to work with others. Team building is both an art and a science and the leader who can consistently build high performance teams is worth their weight in gold.

The Value of Knowing: The Role of Psychometric Assessments

Psychometric assessments are becoming a more common tool to support the talent management process. These assessment tools are utilized assessment and selection, succession planning, coaching, and team development. Individual and team assessments are used to identify common group behaviors, demonstrate gaps in perceptions and provide opportunities to think more openly and work together in a manner for a wide range of measurement purposes including that creates shared group understanding and increase effectiveness.

Accountability

Undoubtedly, accountability plays an important role in the workplace to ensure that set goals are being achieved in a timely manner. So, why is it that leaders have trouble holding others’ accountable. The state of accountability today is ambiguous to say the least. More often than not the lines between individuals’ responsibilities are blurred, making it difficult to discern what each person is designated to contribute. And, the rewards and consequences contingent upon performance are frequently ill-defined or misapplied, creating a disjunction between results and recognition.¹ Thus, individuals lack motivation to keep themselves and others accountable for tasks.

Retaining Top Talent: How to Create an Engaged Workforce 

Many business executives are missing the boat when it comes to their organization’s human capital. The mantra, “Our people are our most important resources,” is often touted, yet seldom acted upon. With unemployment rates steadily declining¹, organizations are beginning to find that their best people are looking to the job market for new opportunities. Now more than ever, leaders need to put their words into action and demonstrate that their employees are vital to their organizations.