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Creating a
New Trustee Leadership Paradigm
By Paul F. Rulison
You
cannot pick up a healthcare journal today without finding some type
of discussion on the importance of leadership in encouraging and
sustaining organizational change and excellence.
The healthcare industry, unfortunately, has not always valued,
nurtured, or supported leadership. This is especially true when
talking about governing boards or trustees.
Maybe it is time, as Leland Kaiser would say, to change our
assumptions and redefine reality.
If our healthcare institutions are to weather the winds of
political, economic and technological change, our past assumptions
about “trusteeship” must give way to an approach based on nurturing
and sustaining leadership. Trustees must help provide this leadership!
What a difference effective trustee leadership can make!
I have seen the difference first hand, from efforts to improve
a community’s health status to propelling institutional change where
there was only inertia. I have seen trustees as community leaders
and volunteers, not employees of the institution, serve as a powerful
force in communicating their institution’s stories to policy-makers.
It is an empowering, inspiring process, one that deserves
to be reinforced continually.
So
how do we encourage, recognize, develop, nurture, and sustain trustee
leadership? And what
is the role of trustees in this process?
Trustee
Leadership Top Ten List
- The
healthcare sector seldom provides trustees with the educational
resources they need to develop or enhance their leadership skills.
Trustees need to have new types of leadership tools, education
and resources in order to properly serve in their constantly changing
roles.
- We
need to educate trustees differently! Ironically, we traditionally
educate trustees in ways that disengage them and devalue their
talents and wisdom. When
a learning environment is created where trustees and management
can share perspectives and engage in genuine dialogue, magical
things happen.
- Trustees
learn best when they are actively engaged in the learning process. They also need action tool-kits that help give them concrete
examples they can use in their institutions and boardrooms.
Too often trustees attend educational/leadership programs
that motivate them to action, only to have their enthusiasm dissipate
because they lack further guidance on how to apply what they have
learned.
- We
need to create “leadership nurturing environments” for trustees.
Educating, nurturing and sustaining trustee leadership
must start at home -- in the boardroom.
But it must also extend beyond the four walls of the boardroom,
for only then will it have its greatest impact.
State hospital and healthcare associations can play a major
role in creating this type of environment and providing valuable
resources, and many have.
- Not
everyone has the capacity or interest in exercising trustee leadership. There are trustees in every state, however, that have
a passion and commitment to the power of trusteeship. Trustees
must help put in place the processes and structures that will
nurture and sustain trustee leadership.
- Trustees
must step up to the leadership plate.
They must start asking the right questions.
Questions such as
– What are our core businesses?
How do they relate to our mission? How is our marketplace
changing? – need to be heard in every boardroom around the country.
- Trustee
leaders need to appreciate that there is no right answer on how
to nurture and sustain trustee leadership.
Trustees need to keep asking the right questions and keep
moving. Continuous education and regular contact with colleagues
are basic activities for all trustees.
- We
often assume that trustees serving on different boards in a community
know each other. This
is often not the case. Helping
trustees develop, through various unstructured forums, personal
relationships and connections with other community trustees can
help create a home, a sense of belonging to a larger cause, and
facilitate leadership activities.
- The
healthcare industry is facing a period of organizational instability. If trustees do not help provide the leadership, where
will it come from? As stewards of valuable community assets, tied
to missions of caring, what group of individuals is better suited
to shape the future of healthcare?
We must not be afraid to unleash the power of trustees
because businesses without great leadership eventually fail.
Trustees must help facilitate an agenda of change and help
develop, nurture and sustain trustee leadership.
- Trustees
lead best when they are properly organized and can interact with
their colleagues. Trustees
excel when they are in an environment that maximizes their interaction
and minimizes structural interferences.
This is due to the fact that organizational structures
have a tendency to undervalue the human spirit and experience.
Healthcare
organizations that excel in today’s marketplace have one thing in
common – effective leadership – at both the management and the governing
board levels. Unfortunately, where healthcare institutions do not
focus enough attention is on trustee leadership development.
It’s time to shed our old assumptions, redefine reality,
and unleash the full leadership potential of healthcare boards.
Paul Rulison served for over six years as Executive Director
of Healthcare Trustees of New York State. He is a Vice President of CHPS Consulting, working nationally
to enhance trustee leadership and involvement.
He can be reached at 518.426.4315 or via email at prulison@chpsconsulting.com.
AHA Calendar
April
3, Fort Smith
April
4, Fayetteville
Arkansas
Association of Hospital Trustees Regional Dinner Meetings
April
5-6, Hot Springs
Arkansas
Association of Healthcare Engineering Annual Meeting
April
19-20, Hot Springs
Healthcare
Financial Management Association
April
20, Little Rock
Arkansas
Society for Healthcare Educators
April
24-25, Little Rock
AFMC
Quality Conference
April
26, Little Rock
Basic/Intermediate
ICD-9-CM Coding Workshop
April
27, Little Rock
Basic/Intermediate
CPT Coding Workshop
April
28-May 1, Washington, D.C.
American
Hospital Association Annual Meeting
May
3-4, Fairfield Bay Resort
Society
for Arkansas Hospital Purchasing and Materials Management
May
4, Little Rock
New
CEO Orientation
May
7-11
National
Hospital Week
May
15, Camden
May
16, Jonesboro
May
17, Conway
Arkansas
Association of Hospital Trustees Regional Dinner Meetings
May
24, Little Rock
Crisis
in Healthcare Staffing
June
13-15, Biloxi, Mississippi
Arkansas
Hospital Administrators Forum Summer Management Conference
AHA
Annual Meeting Plans
"Creating
the Future: A New Era in Health Care for Patients, Communities,
Caregivers" is the theme for the American Hospital Association’s
annual membership meeting April 28 – May 1, 2001 in Washington,
DC.
Arkansas hospital CEOs, administrators, and trustees will hear presentations
from speakers such as ABC news correspondent Ann Compton; Judy Schneider,
congressional specialist for the Library of Congress; Lou Holtz,
former Arkansas Razorback and Notre Dame football coach and now
head coach of the University of South Carolina; Paul Gigot, columnist
for The Wall Street Journal; and Mark Shields, moderator
of CNN’s The Capital Gang. Susan Dentzer, health correspondent
for The NewsHour will moderate a federal relations forum
with key members of Congress.
Hospital trustees will have several educational opportunities to
discuss trustee responsibilities in a changing environment, patient
safety, and a new healthcare delivery system. The annual Capitol
Club luncheon for supporters of the AHAPAC will feature the political
music troupe, The Capitol Steps.
The group will also visit with Arkansas’ congressional delegation
and honor the congressional aides with an appreciation/get-acquainted
dinner. Meeting and registration information has been mailed to
American Hospital Association members.
If, however, your hospital is not an AHA member and you would like
to attend the meeting, contact Beth Ingram at (501) 224-7878 for
a registration packet, or register on-line at www.aha.org.
Please fax a copy of your meeting registration form to the Arkansas
Hospital Association to receive special mailings detailing Arkansas
events.
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