Becker's Hospital Review

The Leadership Competency That's Reshaping Healthcare's Future Healthcare's workforce is now more age-diverse than ever, bringing both extraordinary strength and growing friction. How leaders align those differences will determine culture, performance, patient care—and the future of the industry. By Dan Collard We all know healthcare leaders face pressure from every direction. Workforce shortages. Burnout. Shifting policies and payment models. Financial instability. Changing expectations from employees and patients. But we might not realize the import of one big challenge that underpins all the rest: How do we lead a wildly age-diverse group of people in a way that allows us to successfully navigate this unprecedented era? Healthcare is now a fully multigenerational workplace, with four distinct generations—Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z—working side by side. Each brings different values, communication styles, expectations, and ways of working. Today, what used to be a gap between generations is now a chasm (due largely to the impact of the Digital Age). When those differences are aligned, they create strength, innovation, and resilience. When they're not, they create friction, breakdowns in trust, and performance gaps that directly affect patient care. All of this means that the ability to lead across generational lines is no longer a "nice to have" skill—it's a core leadership competency. This truth has become increasingly evident in my work with healthcare organizations. It's what sparked the concept of the book Genfluence: How to Lead a Multigenerational Workforce, written by Dr. Katherine Meese and me and published by ACHE Learn. If leaders can't connect people across generational differences, they can't build trust, they can't stabilize teams, and they can't sustain performance. And of course, in healthcare, that inability isn't just a matter of culture. It's a matter of safety, outcomes, and patient experience. And it's a matter of what the future looks like. The urgency is being driven by converging forces reshaping healthcare organizations: • An aging patient population is increasing demand for care (much of it highly acute) while straining capacity. • Meanwhile, there's a shrinking pipeline of younger workers entering the workforce as retirements accelerate. • We're still feeling the impact of pandemic-driven turnover that pushed younger, less experienced professionals into leadership roles faster than traditional development models prepared them for. • There's an epidemic of burnout and disengagement that intensifies generational tension inside already-stressed teams. • Changing expectations around communication, flexibility, technology, and workplace culture are changing how people want to work and be led. It's also important to note that healthcare settings uniquely heighten multigenerational challenges, thanks to the high- stakes nature of the work and the interactions between many different key players: board members, leaders, doctors, nurses, patients, and families. In other words, generational friction doesn't just show up in meetings—it shows up in care delivery. It affects how teams communicate, how they respond under pressure, how they collaborate across disciplines, and how patients experience the system. The way people work together directly shapes the care people receive. In our book, Dr. Meese and I introduce the concept of the Genfluencer: a leader who understands generational differences, bridges divides, and intentionally builds trust, belonging, and alignment across age groups. We lay out seven cultural building blocks that foster trust, belonging, and accountability across all age groups. We also provide an eight-step framework—Control + Alt + Lead—to help leaders reboot how they influence, coach, and inspire multigenerational teams. Make no mistake: mastering multigenerational leadership is urgent work for an industry that's in the business of saving lives—and that also requires a fully engaged workforce to reinvent itself in the coming years. Healthcare is depending on leaders to be bridges, not barriers. This is about building organizations where different generations don't just coexist—they collaborate, trust each other, and work together toward a shared mission of not just caring for others but reimagining the future. Dan Collard will present on Genfluence: Leading a Multigenerational Workforce at the Rewiring Healthcare: Foundation to Future Conference, held April 28-29, 2026, in Atlanta, Georgia. To learn more about the conference, to see the detailed agenda, and to register, please visit RewiringHealthcare.com. n Dan Collard is the cofounder (with Quint Studer) of Healthcare Plus Solutions Group® (HPSG). He recently coauthored with Dr. Katherine A. Meese the book Genfluence: How to Lead a Multigenerational Workforce (ACHE Learn). He is also the coauthor (with Quint Studer) of Rewiring Excellence: Hardwired to Rewired and Rewiring Leadership in Post-Acute Healthcare: Equipping Leaders to Succeed. For more information, please visit www.healthcareplussg.com.

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