What Traits Do Health Care Leaders Need Today?

Copyright © 2015 Institute for Healthcare ImprovementAll rights reserved. Individuals may share these materials for educational, not-for-profit uses, provided that the contents are not altered in any way and that proper attribution is given to IHI as the source of the content. These materials may not be reproduced for commercial, for-profit use in any form or by any means, or republished under any circumstances, without the written permission of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

[@Mercyful_Fate.]

Team Leader, care sector: My 12 commandments :-) 1. Be a good person, it's that simple, reflect on the times you've experienced bad leadership, don't repeat it, improve on it, be the leader you would want to work hard for 2. Be aware of team morale, spend time chatting with the team casually, have a bit of fun, be part of the team, get your hands dirty occasionally, lead by example 3. Delegate appropriately and praise good work, make the team feel involved and be patient with staff that need more time for certain tasks 4. Upskill staff and make them feel valued and supported, identify potential, support and encourage it, identify areas of weakness and support staff to address this 5. You don't need to discipline staff for every poor decision they make, sometimes they need a bit of slack, have some humanity, compassion, and humility 6. Appear calm, assured and positive, even if you don't feel that way inside, especially, like me, if you are fairly new to leadership in the care sector, you need to be their rock 7. When staff are out of line, invite them politely into your office, ideally in front of other staff, so they know who's in charge and that you ain't a pushover 8. Never let staff get a negative reaction out of you, you will lose respect, if you are challenged in front of the team, ask them to step into the office for a chat 9. Get staff involved, have regular team meetings, handovers, keep it focused on work and never allow negative chit-chat about staff in front of you and the team 10. Do not break promises to staff, this will lead them to see you as untrustworthy, follow through on everything you say or give a damn good reason why you can't 11. Give staff the opportunity to shine and lead the way, staff will often come up with better suggestions/ideas than you, explore and implement them when it's good, know when you're wrong 12. Rota's are big to winning staff over, be flexible, be considerate of needs, but also know service needs come first, draw the line when required, rotas ain't a democracy, you call the shots.