Abstract
After 25 years of experience in leadership writing, teaching, and consulting - primarily in the healthcare and arguably the most complex sector – it’s been a thought-provoking occasion to read about how Willis Knighton Health (WK) of Shreveport, Louisiana, United States, has created an innovative and comprehensive leadership development program (LDP) for managers and the next generation.
It’s something I have advocated for years, having worked with several healthcare and hospital large systems employing thousands of workers (on average more than 5 and up to 20 thousand in some of them) and hundreds of managers, often not having one single structured internal process to support intentionally and continually their leadership development.
Or, even worse, relying on compulsory training mandatory by health authorities and delivered externally by independent institutions/agencies (university, consulting companies, sector-specific training agencies etc.) on schemes and contents not pre-agreed. Which often meant that the healthcare systems or hospital had low or no control on both key messages and faculty… and I kept wondering… how is it possible that organizations with such size, budget in the order of hundreds of millions of euro and facing the highest managerial internal and external complexity in the whole known galaxy are not developing or designing their own training scheme to be offered to their own managers? Simply unconceivable…
Hence, welcome to Willis Knighton Health (WK). Welcome to John L. Fortenberry, Jr. and his beautiful work of introducing us to the great work on done at WK with three very rich articles: “Leadership development programs in health care organizations: What they are and how to assemble them”, “The leadership expectations statement: A simple tool for enhancing leadership in health care organizations” and “Evaluating leadership development programs in healthcare organizations: A profile from practice”. Three works that together could form the essence of a textbook on Leadership Development Program: how to design them, how to engage participants, how to evaluate results and re-align the program to the specific strategic-organizational context.
Technology, millennials, glocalization, diversity, pluralism, sustainability are among the salient factors that call for a change in the way leadership is framed and acted, particularly in regard to engaging health professionals to unleash the aspirational capital in organizational members. How desirable is this goal and yet how difficult is it to achieve? All the more important is the drive to pursue it.
This is what we expect from great leadership in health organizations. This is what readers will understand from reading this supplement, with its focus on the process and skill sets for acquiring the leadership foundations that can brilliantly drive health organizations in facing current challenges and navigate an enigmatic (but veru exciting) future.
HSMR is proud to offer its readers the opportunity to meet WK and the contributions orchestrated by Dr. John L. Fortenberry, Jr.
What these articles present is exactly what we hope to deliver through the journal: fuel for the continuous development of robust and competent health leadership.
Enjoy it… and…ad maiora!