The past year has been a painful experience for the medical team, and its impact is obvious.According to one Polls, 76% of respondents said they felt “exhausted and burnout”, and 75% of respondents felt overwhelmed.
As healthcare organizations emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, restoring employee confidence and morale is essential to provide excellent, sustainable patient care.
These efforts start at the top, but organizations need to pay attention to first- and second-line leaders to be truly effective.
The following are three ways to cultivate leaders who can effectively create a healthy working environment in the most important place-at the front line of patient care.
Reconnect mission and inspirational vision
This moment is a unique opportunity for leaders and team members to re-recognize their organizational mission and vision. Focusing on the mission enables leaders to re-establish their own careers and personal reasons to choose their careers and the importance of organization in their communities.
The vision of an organization raises the question: “What does a fully completed task look like?” After experiencing last year’s chaos, it’s more important than ever for leaders to answer this question, “How do we inspire each other to create conditions to achieve our future promises?” Reconnecting with the mission and reimagining the vision can enhance the team’s presence. The ability to build on the knowledge learned helps them to be more open and ready to adapt to continuous change.
Balance inquiry and advocacy
Leaders and their team members worked very hard to deal with the daily chaos and challenges of the past year.
One way to imagine is that the medical staff have been busy dancing. In order to lead effectively and strategically, it is important to “walk to the balcony”, observe the team’s actions and evaluate your own status as a leader in the past year.
At the same time, to truly understand the position of team members, they must trust their leaders to listen to their opinions. To build this confidence, leaders must balance investigation and advocacy.
The leader on the balcony asked good, open-ended questions that allowed the team members to appreciate the experience of the past year and promote real dialogue. Useful query questions may include:
- What has been lost in the past year?
- What have we gained in the past year?
- What have we learned in the past year?
- What was the biggest surprise last year? Why?
When asking questions, it is important that leaders and their team members understand their experiences and their impact on their happiness and professional abilities.
Some leaders will face the challenge of moving to the balcony. They are more willing to remain responsible and provide solutions. Some of these actions are needed by leaders. During the transition period, team members will appreciate the appropriate claim to the position. The trick is to balance inquiry and advocacy to adapt to the situation and continue team development.
Develop consistent collaboration habits
Leaders play a key role in moving the organization forward by creating conditions that promote consistency and reduce drama and conflict at work. Leaders understand that to create a safe working environment, they must work with team members to establish consistency in work processes and a respectful relationship with team members. It is very important to have a shared responsibility and commitment to each other and to the care of patients.
Leaders need to be receptive and flexible in behavior, strategic in thinking, and collaborative in attitude. Leaders who can create these conditions are “facilitating leaders.” Some tools and processes can be taught to develop these abilities of leaders. The basic ability to achieve consistency includes how meetings are held, how decisions are made, and how success is measured.
in conclusion
Take a moment to “go slow, go fast”. Look back and understand what happened in the past year and look to the future, and imagine what it would look like to complete the task completely. Most importantly, involve the team in designing and executing the path to realize the vision for the future.
Photo: Nuthawut Somsuk, Getty Images
