“Essential Leadership Tools”

We're delighted to launch our leadership blog series featuring unique insights from across our talented team at Frontier Strategy Partners. Craig Saylor kicks off the series with his thought-provoking piece on "Essential Leadership Tools" - a compelling exploration of intentional leadership practices that challenge conventional approaches. Drawing from his extensive experience, Craig offers valuable perspectives on mission-driven leadership, fact-based decision-making, team empowerment, and achieving meaningful work-life balance. His practical wisdom sets the perfect tone for this series, demonstrating the caliber of insights you can expect in the weeks ahead. Craig's ability to distill complex leadership principles into actionable strategies exemplifies why he's such a valued voice in our organization and the healthcare leadership community. We hope you'll find his observations as inspiring and applicable as we do.

“Welcome to leadership.” Were any of us ever greeted with these words? Nonetheless, we were welcomed in a manner accepted, for good or ill, by the organization's established practices. This honor of leadership isn't one of personal glory, but can be, if approached with the proper perspective, as an opportunity to equip and serve those in our charge. Most of us did not enter leadership knowing what it would be like to lead. Yes, we were skilled: nurses, therapists or other varieties of care providers. We had the appropriate people skills and produced great outcomes within our roles. Upon approaching this position, it was easy to blindly emulate the culture and attitude of the institution.  Rather than leading with intention, we may have chosen to lead in a way which allowed us to be comfortable in our new role.  Instead of bringing up those under us such that they aligned with our organization's mission, we may have adopted the maladaptive practices and habits of those which came before us: neglecting painful change, craving acceptance, an unwillingness to adapt, etc. 

By advancing to leadership, we've missed out on important elements that can make our career as leaders both self-rewarding and rewarding to those around us.

Mission-driven efforts

Bring the mission to life. Is the mission relatable to our frontline caregivers? Have we made the mission just leadership and board buzzwords? How can the mission translate into outstanding performance each day by our caregivers and those that provide services within our critical organization?  

Embrace the facts

Are we satisfied with the average? If not, why are our quality goals benchmarked to state and national averages? Engaging with our managers, physicians and staff with honest current care outcomes and seeking their input to attain the highest objectives for our performance metrics is a requirement. Often though, we are negligent in providing that information to them and the meaning behind our performance metrics and how that ties into their everyday performance and that of achieving the mission of the organization.

Equipping and training 

Train measure and train. Our managers look to us for leadership, however we often fail them by draining their time with meetings that could have been emails, heavy lifting daily that doesn't have critical meaning to their job and providing little or no time for development. Finally, we need to get out of their way. Setting objectives and supporting their accomplishments are part of what we could all do to achieve better outcomes. 

Work-life balance

An enjoyable work life balance is often overlooked. Our expectations of 24/7 access creates a culture of stress and likely burnout. We've all been with people, reported to people or been surrounded by people who feel their value is elevated by access to them 24/7, weekends and holidays. That is just not the case.  A fresh energized mind and one with balance between home and work gives us the greatest opportunity to use our creative minds. Bringing that to our workplace establishes organizational calm versus the feeling of stress and anxiety that has far too often been associated with hard work and dedication.

By putting these solid concepts in place early on in the leadership journey, we can see a pathway for not only our development but also for those around us.  The tools of mission-driven approach, embracing the facts, essential training and work-life balance build a healthcare career rich with growth and satisfaction.