Speaker 1: What is leadership and how can you become a better leader within your organization? More specifically, how can you become an effective leader within a health care organization? Guys, welcome to another episode of Leading Health with Dr. Atom. Really, really good to be here with you. Today, we're going to be exploring leadership. What is leadership and how can you be a better leader? Now, leadership is something that has a massive impact on all types of organizations, especially health care organizations. Let's think about it, guys. When an organization fails, the first thing that normally happens is that they get rid of the leader. Let's think about different types of organizations, from a sports organization to a health care organization. The leaders are normally the first port of call in terms of who is to blame. So when we're thinking about effective leadership, we can see how important it is within organizations. Let's think about leadership within a health care context then. Within a normal organization, if the leader fails, someone loses money. Within a health care organization, when there's failures, it can lead to people dying. And that's why I think health care leadership is really, really, really important. And so today, what we're going to be exploring is the different perspectives on leadership within your organization. So the key question is, what is leadership? I'm not going to bore you with all of the theoretical lenses. I'm going to keep it really, really simple. In essence, leadership is the process you take to bring about change. If you're thinking about that within an organizational context, then leadership is just the process, any process that you undertake to bring about change within your organization. Now, from my research and from my experience, what I have realized is that leadership is really premised on that interpersonal relationship, those interpersonal skills that enable you as the leader to engage with your workforce, with your colleagues, with external partners to actually bring about that change. So what is health care leadership? When we're thinking about health care leadership, it is the same as leadership in that we're talking about the process of bringing about change. But in addition to that, we have three key, really important elements that go into that process. Safety within the organization, the high quality care that is provided within the organization, and also the compassion that is embedded within the fabric of the organization. So from my research, what I realize is that an effective health care leader is one that is able to bring about what I refer to as a learning environment. So there are four key elements to a learning environment. It's really about your ability to be supportive as a leader, to be empathetic, so to have that empathy, your ability to be visible, and finally, your ability to empower your staff. And so as an effective health care leader within any type of organization, actually, your ability to create that learning environment will do two things. It will enable your staff to feel willing and also able to connect and to interconnect with other members of staff. Just imagine if you have a really conducive learning environment in which your staff feel really comfortable, you know, they feel able to engage, they feel willing to engage. Imagine the massive impact that's going to have on productivity. Imagine the massive impact that's going to have on engagement. Imagine the massive impact that's going to have on the well-being of your staff. Really, really important. And so being a health care leader, it's not just about you, but it's about your characteristics and how you transmit them into the organizational environment to actually bring about that high quality, amazing care that we're all really, really interested in. Now, I've been really fascinated about the middle manager within different types of health care organizations. And one of the things that I have explored is the relationship between effective leadership and care quality. And what I've actually found is that there are relationships between being a really effective health care leader and also the quality of care that is delivered within your organization. I remember a few years ago, I did a research in which I tried to look at failing health care organizations. And one of the key themes that was sort of replicated throughout almost all of the organizations that I researched was the fact that there was a deficit in leadership or a deficit in effective leadership. And so when we're thinking about being a good health care leader, it's not just about you. It's really about how you manage to impact on your organizational environment. I think that's really, really important. So if I'm also thinking about my own practical experience, I remember working with a health care leader within a really, really large public hospital. And we were actually working in the emergency department. And through that sort of practical insight, working day to day with lots of different leaders, I realized that when you're trying to be a really effective leader, it is about your ability to think about the safety, to think about the high quality care that you want to deliver. It is also about your ability to think about, you know, being really compassionate, being really supportive, being really empathetic, being visible to your staff so that they know that, OK, then that's the leader. He or she's on the battlefield with us. He or she's getting involved. He or she's actually not just saying stuff, but actually doing stuff. And the final one is about the leader's ability to empower the staff. I've realized that empowerment, particularly within the health care context, is really, really important. And so I'm always advocating for health care leaders to find new and creative ways of empowering their staff as a way of facilitating care quality. So in today's video, we really try to explore what leadership is and what health care leadership is. And so my challenge to you guys moving forward is what are you going to do to advance your leadership competencies? What are you going to do as a health care leader to think more about safety, to think more about the high quality care that you're providing, to think more about really being compassionate, thinking about how you can support everyone within the organizational environment, thinking also about being empathetic and the benefits that can bring to employee well-being and those sort of intrinsic motivators. In addition to that, you really want to be thinking about how you can be more visible on the battlefield, how you can be more visible as a health care leader to your staff so that they know that you're not just leaving them to get on with it, but you're in it with them. And finally, it is about how you're going to empower your employees. As I think about it, one of the things that, you know, I've recognized is that being a health care leader, it doesn't mean that you're at the top of the organization. You can be at any level within the organizational hierarchy and still be an effective, amazing leader. So leadership is really about the process that you take to actually bring about that positive change within your organization. Thank you very much for listening to this episode where we've tried to connect, engage and explore health care leadership together. Please subscribe. Please. If you like this video, if you found it interesting anyway, please just leave a comment and I'll try and get back to you. I'll try and look through and reply to any comments. Please do connect. I'm going to be making regular videos. So I really want to engage with you wherever you are in the world. I want to know about it. I want to engage with you. Thank you very much and look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Thank you.