People who work in healthcare are feeling stress from all sides. Groundbreaking changes in healthcare are forcing all players to fundamentally reorient their approach to creating value for the consumer. Hospital employees must contend with lower volumes as providers invest in ambulatory sites, home health and population health strategies. Administrators, physicians and clinical staff all have come under intensified scrutiny as reimbursement models shift to payment for outcomes versus services delivered.
Couple these business model shifts with a reduced healthcare workforce, and you have an industry facing real leadership challenges. Retiring Baby Boomers have created a brain drain at many workplaces, leaving a historic challenge and an opportunity for new leaders to leave their mark—if only these seismic, industry-wide changes didn't make attracting new leaders so difficult.
But more than ever, we need enterprise leaders who can tap into people's higher purpose in ways they have rarely been called to do in times past. Research suggests the amorphous concept of spiritual health seems particularly germane to the healthcare industry's current state of flux. MedStar Health recently found that the majority of surveyed employees rely on some form of spirituality for strength when stressed or facing change. Data collected through a comprehensive health leadership assessment also confirms a high correlation between a leader's spiritual health and performance and success.
The Business Case for Higher Purpose
People have different perceptions of what spiritual health means. To some, it's faith. To others, it means feeling called to a higher purpose, or being a generous, compassionate person to create a better world. But spiritual health's business implications become clearer when we stop to think how it might address healthcare's recruitment challenges.
Simply put, the ability to steer people through new growth opportunities is a function of spiritual health. Organizations that have been thinking too tactically about meeting talent needs could be well served by stepping back to identify whether it’s doing enough to communicate the desire to work with generous, compassionate individuals with a vision for creating a better world. Many of today's best-and-brightest are drawn to social entrepreneurship and triple-bottom-line businesses. But there is no reason why healthcare—an industry that exists to alleviate suffering and improve people’s quality of life—shouldn't be a contender for top talent.
An Opportunity for Growth
A business that puts narrow financial interests forward without embracing this dimension of personal leadership will suffer in the long term. A business steered by grounded and spiritually healthy leaders, however, is most often able to navigate through change, unleash employee potential and seize new growth opportunities. An unstable landscape becomes not so much a cause for anxiety, but a real opportunity to nurture the connection to a higher purpose and recommit to improving the quality of people’s lives, which is at the heart of great healthcare for all.
This is not strategic optimism, but hard business reality supported by research. Despite unprecedented pressures facing the healthcare industry, organizations can indeed attract the best-and-brightest by appealing to the desire to help others and create a better, healthier world.
Jim Mathews is vice chairman at Healthy Companies International. He partners with top leaders to assess and develop executive team leadership capabilities and clarify their vision and values
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