Leadership is defined as the ability to be influential to an individual, a group or even a society towards achieving their desired or intended goals, besides, becoming best of their capabilities. Leadership can therefore be termed as a process and not just a one-day activity. To be a successful leader there are some traits that one must have or develop. According to The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), there are some domains that guides an individual to become a great and successful leader, therefore they came up with a tool named as Healthcare Executive Competencies Assessment tool that help to analyses critical areas within the health management and can be used by other leaders too. The healthcare analysis is described based on the following domains.
Communication and Relationship Management
According to ACHE, communication and relationship management is defined as the ability to communicate and fluently and interact concisely with internal and external customers in addition to maintaining and establishing good relationships and facilitating constructive interaction with individuals or a group. The domain is further subdivided based on relationship management, communication skills and facilitations and negotiations (Guha, et al 2018). With reference to relationship management a good leader is expected to be able to build collaborative relationship with individuals and groups, to demonstrate the best and effective interpersonal relationship, develop and maintain the best supplier relationship ,develop and maintain medical staff relationship, identify needs of the stakeholders and their expectations, practice and value shared decision making, abide by professional norms and standard of behavior and creating an ethical culture in an organization.
The requirements o a good leader can also be depicted by his or her communication skills and therefor a good leader should depict all principles of communication and apply them appropriately, should have good relations, pass appropriate communication on the mission, objectives and priorities of the organization. The leader should also be able to deliver business communications like meeting agendas, presentations, reports and projects plans. The leader also should be able to present data analysis to decision makers and use factual data to generate and deliver credible report.
Lastly, the communication and relationship management can also be subdivided based on facilitation and negotiation basis. A good leader should therefor mediate, negotiate and dispute resolutions on behalf of his or her staff. The leader should also be able to come up with team building techniques and labor division strategies, should also create and participate in team building. Finally, the leader should be able to facilitate and mediate conflict issues in addition to facilitating group dynamics, process meetings and discussions.
Leadership
Leadership is defined as the ability to inspire individual or organizational excellence by creating and sharing visons to manage and make changes to attain specified and strategic goals of the organization besides enhancing successful performance. According to Healthcare Executive assessment tool leadership can father be subdivided based on leadership skills and behaviors, organizational climate and culture, communication vision and change management.(Gandolfi et al, 2018) With reference to leadership skills and behaviors, a true and good leader should have potential impacts and be consequential in decision making in both internal and external situations, adhere to legal and regulatory standards, create an environment of mutual trust, advocate and participate in the policies of the respective organization. The leader should be collaborative and be able to work with other staff members be influential in decision making and give best solutions.
With reliance to organizational climate and culture, a good leader should be distinguished from the rest through his ability to create a conducive environment and a climate that encourages teamwork, ability to create organizational culture that are friendly to all staff members and favorable to diversity, incorporate culture that are business friendly towards attaining the goals of the business and lastly respect him or herself and others staffs norms.
The communication vision depicts that a true leader should be able to establish admirable and realistic visions and goal for the organization, hold others accountable to the achievement of the organizational goals. Under changes management is expected to accept favorable changes anticipate and develop plans for shortcomings and obstacles that might hinder business performance. The leader should be able to explore new opportunities to ensure success of the business or the respective organization.
Professionalism
Professionalism is the ability to align personal and organizational with ethical and career requirement standards. Based on the ACHE, professionalism can be assessed based on personal and professional accountability, professional development and long-life learning and contribution to the community and profession (Dubbai et al, 2019). Under personal and professional accountability, the respective customer or client rights must be upheld, professional role and accountability must be considered, professional code and ethical behavior also exists as a key factor in the assessment tool. In addition, adherence to ethical business principle, creation of an ethical culture in an organization and derivation of consequences of un ethical actions must also be considered among others.
Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment
This the understanding of the healthcare system and the environment in which healthcare managers and providers work. In the assessment process, knowledge of the healthcare environment can be subdivided into; healthcare system and organization, healthcare personnel, the patient perspective, community and the environment (Al Khamisi et al, 2018). the healthcare and environment are assessed base on healthcare terminologies and healthcare economics among others. On the healthcare personnel can be assessed through ancillary services and physician roles. With reference to the community and the environment, assessment can be done through legislative issue and advocacy.
Business Skills and Knowledge
The ability to apply business principles through thinking into the healthcare system and environment. This domain therefore can is assessed through looking at general and financial management, human resource and information management, risk management, patient safety, strategic planning and marketing and organizational dynamics and governance (Bhagra et al, 2018). Under finance management, there are basic principle of accountability, finance statements, outcome measures and management. Finances management and auditing principles. with reference to organizational dynamics and governance there is organizational system theories, governance structure, construction and maintenance governance.
Strategies to Develop Identified Areas for Each Domain
I identified building collaborative relationship as my development project under the communication and relationship management. To develop this skill, I am planning to involve myself in interactive and social conversations with my fellow colleagues at work. Under leadership, I specified leadership style and techniques. To boost my skills on this, I am planning to further my studies on the best leadership style and the successful forms of leadership. To professionalism I will further my studies on professional and lifelong learning. Besides I would also further studies and take some field studies to know on the best business skills and knowledge on busines management strategies.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Each Domain
According to my studies with reference to ACHE Healthcare Executives 2021 competencies assessments tools, I identified specific area of interest for each of the five domains widely covered them based on the strength and weaknesses as discussed. Based on communication and relationship management, its main strength is evidenced being a key factor of business management communication and interaction is a key factor. On the other hand, main weakness of this domain is that its failure leads to total breakdown of the organization due to lack of interaction. The strength of leadership in an organization is that it enhances the efficiency of the organization as the leader provide directives on how things should be done best., however leadership can de an obstacle to the success of a business or organization especially incase leaders are not chosen in the right manner or are exploiting the resources of the organization.
Professionalism provides the best and standard way on which activities should be carried out to ensure success of the organization or a business, however profession at some level can also be hinderance to success of the organization especially when it comes to trying new and current ideas. Talking about knowledge of the health care environment its advantageous to be aware of the requirements of a given organization., finally on the business skills are a great source of success to an organization by providing ways to give the most efficient format to achieve the desired goals
Qualities Needed by a Leader
From my learning on leadership its evident that leaders require much qualities so as to give the best guidance towards achieving the desired goals of the organizations. This quality are:
- Effective communication; Good leader should be able to interact fluently with. both the internal and external staff members that is the workers and the customers, this enhance flow of resources to attain the goals of the organization
- Integrity; This require a leader to ever do the right thing even when in out of watch of colleagues. Therefor the leader should ever remain ethical based on the organizational requirements.
- Resilience. This where a leader is required to focus on the solution and not the problem. Besides the leader is expected to come up with problem solving techniques and solutions.
- Vision.A leader should have visions towards success to enable the organization to achieve its goals. Therefor the leader should be vison oriented.
- Open minded. A leader should be able to give a wide range of decisions accompanied with critical thinking. Besides a leader should also be able to adopt current changes in his or her plans.
- Positivity. As much as there are uncertainties in businesses or organizations, leader should always remain positive to motivate other staff members towards achieving the desired goals.
- Accommodative. A leader should be considerate to all staff members especially during decision making despite difference in their ideologies.
- Primary qualities are defined as the traits that a leader has to help them succeed, I carrying out their roles as leaders, this qualities include, empathy, compassion and critical decision making skills. The leadership qualities that I possess include; integrity, this help me to overcome challenges such as favoring friends when they are in need. I have always stand still to portray equality and not favoring friends. Accommodative, am always accommodative and I don’t dispute other people’s opinion. Besides am always positive that everything am doing will be successful and that keeps giving me hope toward attaining the best of my goals. the leadership skills I would intend to improve on include resilience and effective communication.
Personal Development Plan
By a span of one year I intend to have achieved the following:
- Gain additional weight by 15 kg through workouts
- Boost my communication skills to enhance my leadership
- Read 10 literature novels
The table shows my one-year development plan:
References
Al Khamisi, Y. N., Khan, M. K., & Munive-Hernandez, J. E. (2018). Knowledge-based lean six sigma system for enhancing quality management performance in healthcare environment. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma.
Bhagra, A., & Sharma, D. K. (2018). Changing paradigm of employability skills in the global business world: A review. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 12(2), 7-24.
Dubbai, H., Adelstein, B. A., Taylor, S., & Shulruf, B. (2019). Definition of professionalism and tools for assessing professionalism in pharmacy practice: a systematic review. Journal of educational evaluation for health professions, 16.
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269.
Guha, S., Harrigan, P., & Soutar, G. (2018). Linking social media to customer relations & management (CRM): A qualitative study on SMEs. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 30(3), 193-214.