Business has always faced change, but never more than today. And healthcare is one of the industries changing the most, especially with new legislation and critical needs of the aging population. Leaders must implement new programs while keeping the rest of the organization humming with the highest quality of care and efficiency.  What they experience, with all of their responsibilities, could be characterized as a lot of NOISE.

Executives are trying to balance all of the balls in the air each day, working until all hours just to find themselves catching up on emails.  Either they can’t keep up and are dealing with pressure or can’t keep up because of opportunities that must be captured in a small amount of time. Leaders have meetings upon meetings with the background pressure of cutting costs and increased competition.  There isn’t an out to the NOISE in the near term.  In fact, NOISE may be the consistent part of their roles.  Controlling the NOISE may be the way to peace.

How to control the NOISE?

1. Invest in leadership development across the board for leaders of others. I know it is counter intuitive to think about taking executives out of the workplace, right now, with the increased NOISE.  However, with no visible break in the near future, there isn’t a better time than the present.  Leadership development is getting very little attention because physicians, nurses and administrators don’t know what to do and they are swamped with their work. Learning what to do and how to handle change is critical.  The challenge is finding the right programs to put them in for the shortest amount of time.
2. Give leaders a confidant. A mentor or a coach that isn’t involved in a leader’s day to day world can be an unbiased source of an ear to listen to the craziness in their world.  This coach can be the resource to share fears, stress or even new ideas.  It can be very lonely to have incredible responsibility and not have a resource like this. Communicating and implementing change, supporting and listening to others and delegation are all skills needed to work through this NOISE.  We need to support these healthcare leaders through this challenging and exciting time for survival for some and improvement for others.

Article by Jennifer Mackin.