From having global goals to being flexible with your leadership style, executives from Temple Health, Scripps Health and BJC HealthCare gave their best advice for hospital leaders.
The following executives were featured in podcasts published by Becker's Hospital Review.
Michael Young. President and CEO of Temple University Health System (Philadelphia): COVID-19 hit Philadelphia early on. ... We converted a former pediatric hospital to a COVID-19 hospital in five days. You have to expect the unexpected, you have to think about what happens if this star doctor leaves, what happens if this star leader leaves, who's gonna fill in, because you need to make that decision today and implement it tomorrow. [You need to] focus on how all the pieces fit together. Particularly, young executives tend to have very narrow goals. I see them cranking to get their goals done for May and June. I'd like them to think more globally: "How will this implementation or decision affect the rest of the organization?" In my experience, I've seen other folks just do crazy things to survive, and then they're in a bad place. And I never like to leave an organization in a bad place.
Ghazala Sharieff, MD. Chief Medical Officer of Acute Care, Clinical Excellence and Experience and Corporate Senior Vice President at Scripps Health(San Diego): I think what I have learned through the years is that you have to be a situational leader. When we first started with COVID-19, there was so much fear, and so much anxiety and so much miscommunication, coming from everywhere — from the county, from the state, from the CDC — and everybody was very confused. Sometimes I had to be more direct than I usually am. Then we went back to the collaborative approach where we got leaders from across the organization; they give us their opinion and then push that out to the organization. But there are different styles of leadership, and I think if you choose one style, you're destined to fail because not every situation is the same.
The other thing that I learned, and I wish I'd learned sooner, was that you've got to let your team try things on their own. There's a great quote by Thomas Jefferson: "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." It basically says don't nitpick people, let them try something. It's a matter of style. Sometimes they're going to surprise you more than you even anticipated. But if there's something that you really feel strongly about, that's the time to take a stance. You can't fight over everything.
Jennifer Carron. Chief Patient Experience Officer at BJC HealthCare (St. Louis): I got my first job in healthcare operations. I was the executive assistant. I would be in the boardroom and I'd hear a lot about the issues that were going on. I decided that I wanted to get my administrator's license, and the day that I got my administrative license, I wrote the CEO a letter and explained how I'd turn his operations around. The next day, he walked into the office with the letter and said, "Jen, you said you could dance, now let's see it. Pack your stuff and get to work." That's exactly what I did, and it really launched my healthcare career. My advice to emerging leaders is to surround yourself with multiple mentors, educate yourself, you know, to the world that you started to be a part of both academically and operationally, because they're very different. Be confident and be bold.