Organizational Effectiveness and Leadership in Healthcare

 

The success of a healthcare organization greatly depends on the effectiveness of the leadership in place. Leaders are a very integral part in the development and communication of new organizational strategies. Then, these strategies are shared throughout the organization as to motivate the employees so that they become more dedicated towards the organization’s goals (The CEO Institute, 2016). Leaders must maintain certain competencies in order to be as effective as possible within any organization, which is why the best leaders are always looking for ways to improve themselves.

If I am planning on being a leader at some point in the future for a healthcare organization, it is important that I take into consideration the competencies that I already possess to determine the areas in need of improvement. I will be using two competencies as an example, effective communication and self-management. Being an effective communicator is essential to leading any organization and I consider myself to be quite strong in this particular competency. Effective leaders must have a strong understanding of how to properly communicate to stakeholders, management, patients, employers, and any other important factors that affect the organization. Forms of communication have only improved over the years such as in the use of email, presentations, video conferencing, social media, or simply in-person. Then, there is the understanding of body language, tone of voice, or being a proactive listener to help you in becoming a better communicator. I initially learned how to become a great communicator as a student in a professional sales organization and then proceeded to practice effective communication throughout my professional career to this day. There is always so much to learn in regards to being an effective communicator. A survey that was conducted by Athena Health found that physicians significantly cited the ability to communicate as the most essential skill for management of healthcare. Physicians cited communication to be the top leadership skill to focus on for improvement, which is the area that would benefit the healthcare organization the most (Cosinuke, 2016).

The second competency to discuss is self-management, which is an area where I find that I could always use a significant amount of improvement. The skills for self-management are the foundation of good leadership and a prerequisite of a excellent manager and leader. One of the most essential skills on managing oneself is emotional competencies (Kumar, Adhish, & Chauhan, 2014). Dealing with emotions within the work environment can be challenging because work can tend to be a stressful environment. From personal experience, I find it difficult at times to prevent personal emotions from outside of work from affecting me entirely because it can be quite draining, especially with everything else you have to deal with in the workplace on top of that. I find it best to look for ways to cope with stress and emotions so that it will affect my professional work as minimal as possible. Emotional competencies are based on emotional intelligence and a particular amount of emotional intelligence is needed in order to learn the emotional competencies. Evidence has indicated that strong job performance is linked to high emotional intelligence (Kumar, Adhish, & Chauhan, 2014). Individual behaviors can improve the quality of patient care significantly and emotional intelligence may explain why some practitioners and organizations are better at delivering patient care. It has also been shown to have a positive effect on teamwork, communication, stress management, organizational commitment, and effective leadership (Warren, 2013).

These are just two of many competencies that are imperative towards being a great leader within a healthcare organization. Personal improvement is a long, worthwhile process. I hope to continue developing my competencies so that I can be a great leader some day.

References:

Cosinuke, R. (2016). Communication is the most important leadership trait. Retrieved from .

Kumar, S., Adhish, V. S., & Chauhan, A. (2014). Managing Self for Leadership. Indian Journal of Community Medicine : Official Publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine, 39(3), 138-142. .

The CEO Institute. (2016). The Importance of Business Leadership. Retrieved from .

Warren, B. (2013). Healthcare Emotional Intelligence: Its Role in Patient Outcomes and Organizational Success. Retrieved from .