Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1539464
For Lasting Results, Commit to Building Leadership Muscle O ccasionally, Healthcare Plus Solutions Group® (HPSG) has organizations call us asking for help to accomplish a goal or hit a specific metric. It could be in the areas of patient experience or employee engagement, or more specifically in outcomes like turnover/retention. They often expect us to bring in a list of to-dos that will fix the issue. But when we talk to them, it becomes clear that there's something missing foundationally…they haven't built the leadership muscle needed to make it work. It reminds me of someone who wants to be a bodybuilder yet doesn't truly understand how the whole body works together. They might focus on their pectorals and biceps but don't strengthen their core or get the right nutrition. Obviously, this is an injury waiting to happen. Or, another analogy: Someone reads a book about running a marathon, then signs up for one. They might run for a few weeks beforehand, but they don't put in the months of training required to build their muscles and endurance. Needless to say, they "hit the wall" early, and, for them, the race is over. To truly get results and sustain them, the foundation must be there—and that's a natural extension of consistent leadership. Cultures of high performance are created with an eye toward finding and reducing leadership variance. The first ingredient in this recipe is providing leaders with the skills, tools, and knowledge to accomplish their goals. Minus the development factor, you might get a burst of improvement, but it will be a flash in the pan: just one more healthcare initiative whose most lasting legacy is the coffee cup, t-shirt, and pictures from the "kickoff party." When we provide the arena to build leadership muscle, we naturally help leaders build the rigor and discipline to keep taking the right actions…to remained focused…to stay the course. Otherwise, they will get distracted when an urgent issue pops up and will stop doing the things that move the needle. And leadership is a cohesive skillset that's built from the ground up. An organization can't just cobble together some leadership tactics like you might see on TikTok and expect it to work. (These are tools, not skills.) Likewise, HPSG can't just bring in a bucket of tools and to-dos and help a client get results—at least not lasting results. Incidentally, leader development is more crucial right now than it's ever been. It's not unusual for 40 percent of leaders in a healthcare organization to be new to their leadership role or new to leadership in general. And leading today's multigenerational workforce, with all its different expectations, communication styles, and preferences, is not easy. It requires a whole new skillset. (Genfluence: How to Lead a Multigen Workforce, my upcoming book coauthored by Dr. Katherine A. Meese and published by ACHE Learn, explores this subject.) When we start working with an organization, we bring an approach to leader skill building for employee engagement, patient experience, and certain "culture elements"—like behavior standards, reward and recognition, information cascading, onboarding for new employees and leaders—that are instilled over time. What follows naturally are gradual improvements in operations, finance, retention, and flow… and over time, the organization starts getting the metrics they want. (There are no short cuts.) A few tips to keep in mind: • Understand that "the tool is not the skill." We find most organizations know the tools already (they're no secret), but their leaders don't have the skills to ensure that they're implemented consistently. • Invest in leader development. This is the single most important investment an organization can make, because everything else you want to achieve depends on it. • Make sure it's the right kind of development. As I explained in an earlier column, traditional theory-based or off-the-shelf approaches don't work well in today's environment. Impactful development is metrics-based; tailored to an individual's skill level, learning style, and work schedule; and based mostly on applied learning (where people actively apply their skills and knowledge to real-word situations). • Urge leaders to move past box-checking. For example, don't ask, "How many patients did you round on yesterday?" or, "Are we using the whiteboards?" Instead, ask, "As you rounded on patients, what did you learn?" Or, "What's the most valuable feedback our patients gave?" The idea is to encourage leaders to reflect, interpret what they learn, and problem-solve rather than simply go through the motions. Building leadership muscle isn't flashy, and it doesn't come with instant gratification. I read something recently that resonated: "Easy has a cost." It's true. It's not easy to train for a marathon or strengthen your core, but when you don't, the race gets harder, or the injury sidelines you. That's when you pay the bill for not doing the work up front. The same is true with leadership training. When organizations commit to developing their leaders in meaningful ways— beyond tools, tactics, and box-checking—they lay the foundation for lasting success. Metrics will follow, but only because leaders are equipped to do the hard, disciplined work that sustains them. n Dan Collard is the cofounder (with Quint Studer) of Healthcare Plus Solutions Group® (HPSG). He is the coauthor (with Quint Studer) of Rewiring Excellence: Hardwired to Rewired and Rewiring Leadership in Post-Acute Healthcare: Equipping Leaders to Succeed. He is currently coauthoring with Dr. Katherine A. Meese the book Genfluence: How to Lead a Multigen Workforce (ACHE Learn, Winter 2025). For more information, please visit www.healthcareplussg.com.