A633.6.4.RB – Circle of Leadership

Circle of Leadership

            At Adventist Health System we are in the present undergoing an extensive strategic change in planning organization culture mapping.  The project requires over 3,300 plus employees, physicians, contract labor members, and volunteers of Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center and Florida Hospital Healthcare Partners alone to be exposed to a four-hour immersive training session that addresses the organization’s rebranding efforts, the future state of healthcare, organization’s mission and associated expectations.  Many logistics to consider such as identifying & training facilitators, some sessions, training space, registration for the course, tracking compliance, aligning policy for non-compliance, communication, etc.  The logistics and resources for this strategic project change nearly every day.  Those changes require us to include vital contributors to determine unintended consequences and that we resolve issues timely and that the critical pieces have not been overlooked.  Additionally, the executive team or sponsor must also be kept in the loop as changes are made and integrated into the plan. 

There is more inclusivity around how Adventist Health System arrives at both the development and execution of strategy.  Many organizations have become so complex and competitive in nature that the methodology around strategic change development really calls for a full complement of input ranging from financial impact to access to necessary resources required to integrate change.  The most prevalent communication strategy at Adventist Health System still involves downward communication.  Because so many leaders and employees are calling for input at every level, horizontal communication is on the rise.  For example, with the current cultural mapping exercise that was previously mentioned will require an overall downward communication strategy.  However, much of planning and subsequent execution is occurring at a middle leader level.  In this case, the communication is initially upward and then switches to a downward approach when the Chief Executive Officer discusses the plan with the employee population. 

The Vicious Circle of Leaders

Leader and followership can be compared with a Leader-Member Theory.  According to Northouse (2015), Leader-Member Theory (LMX) can be best understood within the leadership-making model of Graen and Uhl-Bien (1991).  Graen and Uhl-Bien (1991) advocated that leaders should create a special relationship with all followers.  Leaders should offer each member the opportunity to take on new roles and responsibilities.  Also, leaders should nurture high-quality exchanges with their followers.  Instead of concentrating on the distinctions between the in and out-group members, the leadership-making model recommended that leaders should consider looking for different avenues to build trust and respect (Northouse, 2015) with all their followers and creating the entire work unit an in-group accordingly (p.145).

Zhao, H. (2015) conducted a research on the leader-member exchange differentiation and team creativity.  The primary focus of the Zhao’s study was to explore LMX differentiation on team activity through a process moderated by a mediation model.  The concentration of the analysis model was on the mediating role of relationship conflict in linking LMX with team creativity and the moderating role of team-member exchange (TMX) median in influencing the mediation (Hongdan, 2015).  The controlled intervention paradigm helps in the breakthrough of understanding the mediating approach theoretically which supports the significant impact of LMX on the creativity of the team.

Zhao’s (2015) research resulted in some substantial contributions.  First, because the increase in relationship conflict may cause an adverse effect on team creativity under the LMX differentiation, it is imperative that leaders be proactive in finding ways to lessen if not eliminate adverse correlated impacts with LMX differentiation.  One way of managing negative implications is for leaders to define every members’ contribution thus depleting unfair rationale from members.  It would also be judicious for organizations to cultivate pathways of conflict management diminishing conflict relationships in the workplace.  Ultimately, to facilitate better understanding within team members the importance of their responsibilities as well as other team members, leaders and organizations need to promote task-oriented reciprocation within groups or departments (Zhao, 2015).  The success of this initiative is for managers to encourage work rotations, acknowledge supporting behaviors in the workplace and inspiring their workforce to partake openly in communicating workplace issues and work-related theories or ideas.   

At Adventist Health System our Executive Leadership team encourages and empowers our senior leadership team to practice supportive communication.  Our Environmental Services employees do not have to ask their direct supervisors if they should meet our Chief Executive Officer for a bright idea (although we have a committee that is responsible for the collection of bright ideas all year round).  During Town Halls, our Chief Finance Officer and Chief Operations Officers open the floor for our employees to be comfortable in asking questions without fear of retaliation.  

Currently, sharing and shaping in the East Florida Region of Adventist Health System's Florida Hospital Facilities is prevalent.  Directors of Human Resources for the five hospitals of the East Florida Region are working together to standardize the policies and procedures, new employee hiring, onboarding practices, and marketing initiatives.  The standardization across the East Florida Region is fully supported by the CEOs and Executive Leadership of the six East Florida Region campuses.  It resulted in lowering turnover rates and higher retention rates across the board.  Standardization of our policies and procedures and communication across North Region minimized if not eliminated the elements of confusion within the East Florida Region Senior Leadership and employees.

All staff and leadership team are encouraged and empowered to adopt a behavior of producing or involvement giving them stakes in the decision making or leading initiative that has a direct effect on their jobs or positions in the organization.  Employees all through the years have saved the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars through their innovative thinking on cost-saving programs.  Employees receive 10% of the total annual savings due to the result of the implementation of the employees cost saving initiatives.

The culture of producing, co-ownership, empowerment, and involvement has translated to increased productivity in our organization.  Employees who feel vested in our organization cultivate the strong work ethics within their peers, they have become more self-sufficient, and are getting confidence in navigating their responsibilities, with minimal interference and depending lesser from their supervisors for direction in accomplishing tasks.  The culture of producing and empowerment also fosters team cohesion within our organization.

According to Boyatzis (2012), leadership is a relationship between a leader and the follower.  Excellent leaders work very hard in developing their emotional intelligence and have the ability to make decisions in enhancing a long-term organizational success while preserving the organization’s financial stability.  Good leaders inspire and create a workplace environment that is supportive of innovation or creativity and change.  Yukl (2012) described leadership as the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what and how things are accomplished.  Obolensky (2014) stated that a leaders behavior or mindset will regulate the level of the follower's maturity. 

In today’s global organizational workplace environment, we find an apparent gap in the quality of our corporate leaders and of course in ourselves as leaders.  Our leaders, including myself, identify ourselves with a single leadership style but within each of us possesses both competing sides that one can be characterized by polarity that may lead to of significance.  For example, as leaders, we quietly embark on pursuing quests in achieving brilliant things.  But at times, there is an imposter that exist within us who is self-doubting, a silent character that is a major stimulator of an apparent gap with the quality of our leadership. 

To close the quality of our leadership gap, strategic changes at Adventist Health System are typically implemented and communicated from our Executive team to the mid-level leaders and flowed downward.  But with our rebranding project, strategic changes are communicated and implemented through defining what should be accomplished and the development of a plan that lends itself to achieving the final optimal outcome from mid-level to Executive Team then downward to our employees.  Key individuals & subject matter experts are included in the planning process so that all considerations (barriers & opportunities) are incorporated into the change and/or implementation.  Sometimes, the implementation and execution of a strategy is very prescribed and aligned across our organization by the Executive Team.  Other times, an assigned committee that composes of senior leadership and select employees, are given the latitude to create a customized implementation plan that is based on near-term or future state goal setting and subsequent achievement for upward communication then downward to our employee population.

References

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