The healthcare industry is constantly innovating, changing, and growing. To keep up with the changing needs of both patients and organizations in the space, healthcare leaders must be in tune with the needs of different stakeholders, while having the strength to make difficult decisions and push through setbacks. Here are five traits that effective healthcare leaders need.
- Being communicative with your team and patients
A patient will almost never see only one medical professional over the course of their medical journey. Research shows that over the course of one hospitalization, patients see an average of 17.8 health professionals: 6 doctors, 10.7 nurses, and 1.0 allied health workers. Because healthcare, more than many other industries, relies on smooth teamwork to deliver successful results, communication is even more important. As a leader, you need to have open communication channels with each person in your team, as well as a mutual understanding of the most effective style of communication for different scenarios. Improved communication leads to happier healthcare workers, better and safer outcomes for patients, and more efficient organizational processes.
- Having emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to understand the emotional motivations of both yourself and the people around you. Being an emotionally intelligent leader means being able to read between the lines, inferring pieces of the puzzle that aren’t explicit. Emotionally intelligent leaders understand that people are not their behaviors — rather, behaviors are the result of underlying emotional processes. Being able to take a step back from a situation to decode these emotional driving factors means that leaders can be more empathetic and kind, making sure that the people they manage feel heard and supported. In an industry like healthcare, where one in three physicians is experiencing burnout at any given time, it’s especially important that leaders are in tune with the emotions of those around them, not only to prevent burnout in the first place but also to recognize the signs early and ensure that everyone gets the support they need.
- Being resilient and not letting setbacks stop you
This is not necessarily just a trait that is important to healthcare leaders, but rather to everyone who works in healthcare. One of the main contributors to burnout in the healthcare industry is the fact that medical professionals will always be exposed to more human suffering, death, and intense emotional experiences than people in other industries — it’s simply the nature of the job.
Working in healthcare means that you will inevitably experience setbacks and difficulties, from logistic difficulties, like a delayed shipment of crucial hospital supplies, or emotional difficulties, like the unexpected loss of a patient. Learning to process these challenges in a healthy way, and not letting them impact your day-to-day life, is crucial to effective healthcare leadership.
- Continuously learning
Whether it’s through formal qualifications like an online Ed.D. in Health Education or staying up to date on the latest advancements in technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual reality, healthcare leaders need to be continuously learning and expanding their knowledge. Healthcare is a constantly changing field and is a field greatly impacted by technological advancement.
For example, using AI can help professionals detect diseases earlier and with more accuracy than traditional means. However, AI does not come without its dangers and pitfalls, and overreliance on a new technology can come with its own set of problems. Healthcare leaders need to be able to tread the line between early adoption that could save lives, and prioritizing patient safety with proven technology — the only way that healthcare leaders are able to do that is if they are constantly learning and growing themselves, and staying on top of emerging trends.
- Acting with integrity
Acting with integrity encompasses a large variety of actions, and is essential for healthcare leaders. It includes things like a commitment to honesty, even when the truth is hard to share, and a commitment to professional healthcare ethics, such as patient confidentiality, fair treatment, and prioritizing patient outcomes over profit or speed. Healthcare leaders who act with integrity also take accountability for their actions and their decisions and learn from their past mistakes, addressing issues with transparency and moving forward using the past as growth.
At the end of the day, a true healthcare leader will treat everyone, regardless of their race, age, gender, role, status, or experience, with respect and dignity, from patients to staff to organizational stakeholders. Leaders who can do this will create workplaces that are happier and more successful, for both patients and professionals.