Team Leadership, Team Diversity, Team Power: Part 1

This is part 1 of a 3 part series on transforming your team into an efficient and effective part of your organization. The power of a team starts with leadership, is emboldened and boosted by team diversity, and the impact is felt when those two work together for a common mission. This post is about where it all starts: Leadership.

Leading in today’s healthcare environment is tough. The complex nature of our jobs and healthcare means you usually don’t experience a “ground hog” day too often. The demands of your boss, the requests from your followers, and the needs of patients means your schedule and workload keep growing. And there is never enough time to get everything done.

Thank goodness for working in teams!

OK, did I just say it’s great to work in on a team? For so long we have abused teams, called a gaggle of people a team, or been a part of a team with no leader. Teams have been the bane of many organizations and my existence in healthcare. If you have a problem, someone forms a team. Your organization runs into a challenge, form a team. You’re presented with a new opportunity, form a team. The organization of failing, you got it form a team.

I have had both remarkable and empowering teams and I have had teams where I couldn’t wait for it to end. To this end though, teams are not really the problem. How you select the leader and how the team is determined are the beginning failing points of the process. Critical planning on leader and team selection can determine the success of the team. It’s time to look at what you need.

The leader of a team needs the basic core competency of teamwork. As I have experienced and as I have talked with leaders in many industries, a traditional failing skill set which will destroy a leader is the inability to work well on a team. If a leader has a challenge being a good team player, they will not make a good team leader. That sounds like such a basic concept, but it truly is one which is overlooked by executives and then leaves them wondering why a team failed.

Recently in discussion with a colleagues, this concept was highlighted. Rob was in a middle management position in the organization. The opportunity presented itself for Rob to take over a team to work on a continuous process improvement (PI) project for a unit’s challenge. At the first update brief to executives on the PI project, Rob reported challenges with accomplishing anything substantial on the project. He reported the team was not engaging, he was doing a large part of the work, and he was not getting support from the team to meet the goals and deadlines. As the brief continued, Rob shared he was working as hard as he could get something done with the team. This team Rob selected from his colleagues and consisted his colleagues he got along with and had a good relationship with on a daily basis. He was frustrated on why the team was not accomplishing more.

As my colleague was sharing this with me I asked them how well does Rob perform on the teams he is currently on when he is not the leader? Not surprised, my colleague said that Rob is known not to engage when he is on a team and isn’t much of a team player. I asked why Rob was given the position of the leader on this team and my colleague said Rob needs some development and we figured it was time we gave him the chance to lead a team.

Leaders, we set Rob up for failure.

Sustaining an amount of time in an organization or being in a profession for longer period of time than other peers does not make a person a leader. This is a classic mistake by other leaders. Too many times we start looking for a leader as an immediate reaction without much deliberate planning. Sometimes that can be due to an immediate need or because we don’t have a process to know and develop our leaders.

Any organization who says they value their people should begin immediately to invest in them. Leadership development is a crucial piece of an organization’s sustainment plan if they are serious about survivability of the organization and caring for their people. It truly is stupefying the number of organizations who treat their staff and leaders like a piece of chewing gum. They chew them up and spit them out when they think they have lost their flavor.

Yet the organization has a role and responsibility in developing the leaders they need to sustain their mission. This is a crucial point as you are looking at your middle managers and those leaders who take care of the front line workers. These position are critical to success of the organization. And too many organizations make the decision on who will be the next leader like it is an episode of the TV Survivor. If you can out wit, out last, out play your competitors, then you get the be the next leader.

If an organization is going to change the course of their organization, if the culture needs an adjustment, or if the organization wants to improve efficiency and effectiveness of their teams, then there needs to be a more deliberate approach to selecting their leaders and their leader’s development.

As with my colleague and her leader Rob, there was no way Rob was developed or prepared for the leadership that was expected of him. Rob does own some of the responsibility, but the organization and Rob’s leaders are at fault. Before your organization runs into crisis management on leader selection, it would be beneficial to at least start assessing your potential leaders and determine their skill sets. I recommend the following 4 steps:

1. Identification: Not all employees are ready for the role and responsibility of leadership. That is not to say they will never be ready. But people develop differently. Their passions evolve and they grow and change with new experiences. A responsibility of a leader is to make an evaluation of those who work for them and determine who has the skills or potential capability to become a good leader. The leader needs to assess if any of these followers would be a good fit for a leadership position with the organization. This should be a continuous process and done regularly. It should be a constant evaluation of your followers to see who is developing and who is not.
2. Skill Assessment: The next step is to look at the skills required to be a leader in your organization and the leadership skills currently of your staff. Evaluate them on their clinical work if appropriate, the core competencies of leadership which they are good at and the ones which are deficient or missing. It would be beneficial to create a basic template of those skills you believe are paramount to success in your organization. Then evaluate your followers. Your evaluation should be accomplished using the same standard for each follower. It is ultimately easier if you provide a quantitative value for each skill so you can see quickly how each follower is doing. This skill assessment should be accomplished at a minimum of every 6 months.
3. Skill Development: Once you have your assessment, now start to provide the development of each leader you’ve identified. This personal plan should be shared with them during your feedback sessions. Highlight the areas they are doing well in and share with them the areas you have found need improvement. Then tackle and action plan to get their development moving. Even for the followers who are not ready for a leadership position, you should also provide them opportunities for growth and development. In time, the goal would be for them to be prepared and to lead.
4. Evaluation and Reassessment: Now give your new leaders opportunity, mentorship, evaluation as they begin to practice their new skills. The goal is to allow them to be operating independently as soon as possible. You would never send a new nurse into a room to start their first IV without supervision, don’t send your new leader into a new leadership situation without some form of supervision appropriate for the situation. Let them make a few mistakes, but make them teachable and allow them to grow.

The training method of “baptism by fire” is NOT an approved training option. You should not want your followers to learn that way either. Leading a team is a valuable skill set. My colleague’s organization failed in preparing Rob to lead. They knew he didn’t have the correct skill set but they pushed him on anyways. We need to do better.

It’s time to take 4 simple steps in the advancement of our team work to select and train our leaders for the task. For some it will come easier. Some may never have the personality or leadership ability to handle leading a team. But as a leader, you have the most integral part to ensure that those you lead and select to lead are ready for the task. It’s time to step up to the challenge.

Leading with you!

Dean

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