Eight tips are shared on how to become a good healthcare manager and leader; from having the right mindset and attitude, to getting the right team, to being agile yet consistent, having open mind, continuously learning, and ability to carry the vision and win together.
Many define a good manager as being able to deliver satisfying financial results or performance outcomes of the area under their leadership. But in healthcare, being a good manager, does not mean you will be a good healthcare leader and vice versa. To be able to master both requires experience and intentional effort. Here are eight tips to consider if you want to be a good healthcare manager and leader.
Good healthcare starts from ‘heart-care’ i.e., caring from the heart about holistic care. Healthcare is not just an institution to provide medical care for detection of disease or restoration of health, or just another business to make profit. Any healthcare leader needs to start with the right mindset and attitude. When a healthcare leader leads with the right mindset and focus, it gets reflected in the decisions and action plans. And why holistic care? Healthcare should not be transactional or provided in silo. A good healthcare is a holistic care.
No one is perfect in any management or leadership team. Hence, as a healthcare leader, it is important to gather a combination of people with different strengths and talents to be part of the team. Find people with different talents, different strengths and different experiences to complement one another. There is a saying that goes “The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (The Bible, 1 Corinthians 12:20-21). Everyone is good at different things, and everyone has a different role to play. One’s strength is the other’s weakness, and one’s weakness is another’s strength, and that is how the team can work in synergy. Diversity is strength.
Healthcare is in the midst of great transformation. Digitalisation and automation will replace many traditional way of doing things. External factors such as changing national policy, ongoing public health threats from communicable and non-communicable diseases, and workforce shortage will be pressuring the healthcare delivery system to change. As a healthcare leader and manager, if one is not agile enough to know how to face challenges and when to adapt to new changes, the team and institution will be left behind. Being agile means being responsive and willing to change the usual way of doing things, change a plan that has been fixed but found not effective, or even reconsider what has been rejected.
As a leader, it is important to be consistent. Consistency in the values and principles, decision making and direction, and one’s word. This helps the team to work with peace of mind and psychological safety, knowing that the boss or supervisor is steering the ship steadily. A leader or manager that keeps changing their mind, with no consistent value or direction, is tantamount to throwing the team into a storm in a ship without steering a wheel. How can one expect such a ship to reach its destination safely?
With the speed at which technology is being developed, and the new generation of talent is evolving, being ahead in knowledge and skills is important. An innate curiosity to want to know more and to want to be better will motivate employees to learn and grow. Passivity, indifference, and stagnancy kills. As a leader, it is like standing still while climbing a steep slope — not moving forward means one will be falling backward. The only way to move forward is to keep learning, keep growing and be better in what we do.
Problems happen when we do not see the problem as a problem. Having the ability to look back retrospectively and study one’s mistake or outcome of decision made, helps to refine one’s own decision-making skill. It is also good to regularly take stock, study retrospectively, to reassess plans to move forward. Gaining feedback and insights from peers, juniors, seniors or even competitors will help one to spot weaknesses and improve.
There is a saying “people without vision perish”. A good healthcare leader should be able to not just fulfill the organisation’s mission or fulfill their duties. They should be able to envision what the organisation should be like in five or ten years. The person crafting the vision could be anyone, the manager, the founder or a predecessor. The manager needs to be interested and able to catch the vision and lead the team to run towards it.
In the dog eat dog world, many will kill to survive or kill to win. This could be a colleague that one does not see eye-to-eye with or an external competitor. This mindset should have no place in healthcare. Healthcare is a common good and healthcare needs are humongous with many needs still unmet. Hence, coming together with each of their own strengths to meet the needs of the patients will ensure that everyone wins together. This means being willing to come together amidst differences to collaborate and share resources in partnership.
