St. Joseph’s HA511 Course, Leadership in Health Administration, encourages students to reflect on their personal leadership journey, leadership effectiveness and the transformation of healthcare. During week 2 students engage in a dialog on the discussion board sharing with one another leadership quotes that inspire them. The following is a post from Aaron Strout:
My Motivation to Pursue a Leadership Role in Healthcare
“You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people.” Cornel West
Leadership is not a subject I have studied in depth. It is not a subject I have been interested in studying until recently. The concept of leadership may even be one that I viewed with contempt for many years, viewing leaders as shameless self-promoting bullies, hawking their snake oil to mindless masses. But I am older now, not as interested in “sticking it to the man” or “fighting the power”, as I am in modeling a life and creating a future that my children and others can be proud of and benefit from. This adjusted paradigm has allowed room to value the concept of leadership, and even myself as a leader.
Working in healthcare has allowed me to see my role develop as an advocate. This advocacy unfolds in different aspects, but it’s primary motivation stems from perceived areas of injustice and wrongs that should be made right. Healthcare is not a perfect environment. Healthcare related mistakes cost too many lives every year. These can include clinical mistakes as well as system injustices that omit access to certain populations of people.
I also feel a sense of responsibility to fellow healthcare workers. My primary role over the past 10 years has been as a nurse, but I see other disciplines and departments as equally important in creating a functional healthcare environment. Too often healthcare does not do a good enough job taking care of the people who take care of others. For example, while the consensus is to debrief and process after a traumatic event happens at a hospital, long term care facility or an office, my experience is that this does not happen in practice. Consequently, employees are left to process death, blood, suffering, pain, and chaos independently without the formal support of their peers. These events are often discussed informally amongst co-workers, but little follow up is done from an employer perspective. Many daily events are not as traumatic, but still deserve to be followed up on, so that employees can focus the majority of their time and energy on creating a positive environment for patients and families.
Herein lies my motivation to pursue a leadership role in healthcare. As an industry, we need to do a better job at caring for those we work with. I am convinced this is the only way to improve the healthcare experience and industry. When we start caring for each other, we will do a better job caring for our patients and families.
Healthcare needs leaders who are developing their worldviews and growing their inner capacity to, “…love the people.” Instructor: Danine Casper, MHA
