Leading Lakeland Clinic to Success: A Project to Build Leadership and Quality of Care

Introduction

Hello, Lynnette! Thank you very much for giving me a chance to partake in your organization's project. The plan in your hospital would not only improve governance but would also enhance the quality of care. I believe Lakeland Clinic requires an effective leader with an ability to address workforce challenges and issues regarding the quality of healthcare. The project offers me an excellent opportunity to build my leadership skills and, more importantly, competency in managing people from diverse backgrounds. I understand from your email that the main challenges in your hospital arise from the inability of the nurses and other employees to offer culturally competent care that meet the needs of the residents. As a result, the staff has not been able to develop trusting relationships with people visiting the facility.

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However, Lakeland Clinic would be able to resolve such issues through strategic plans that consider an array of problems in today's healthcare settings. The success of the project depends on the competence of the committee. Importantly, here is that the team should be able to understand the scope of the problem and provide guidance on solutions. The leader, as well, ought to foster meaningful collaboration among members. Research has proven that collaborative leadership improves the performance of teams and their ability to solve problems (Bennet, 2004). Having a leader that can foster collaboration for the achievement of optimum benefits, therefore, is the first step towards enhancing the success of the project.

Leadership Skills Desirable for the Project

The project requires a competent leader with a variety of traits or characteristics. These components are strong communication and organizational skills, conflict management and resolution skills, creativity skills, and the ability to manage change. The literature, however, is in consensus that a leader in any setting or domain should have collaborative skills, conceptual, administrative, networking, and team skills (Berghout et al., 2017). Some researchers have also argued that leaders in healthcare ought to have the clinical knowledge to enable them to make "informed decisions based on clinical evidence" (Berghout et al., 2017, p. 15).

Communication skills are essential for this project as it enables one to lead people and teams effectively. In the committee where members have to build consensus on the issues facing the clinic, effective communication skills are necessary to avert misunderstanding and frustrations. Since the organization is planning to offer culturally competent services to its clients, the ability to manage change and steer the vision of the facility is also essential. In this sense, creativity skills support decision-makers in initiating changes that best fit the organization.

Creative leaders are in a better position to address challenges facing the organization as they can look at the existing problems differently. Such people ought to understand how and when they should involve the employees in building consensus on issues affecting them. In doing so, team members should respect one another, especially when weighing opinions or options and negotiating to agree on the best strategy for the organization. This way, collaborative and participate skills are of great importance to the success of the project.

The Chosen Healthcare Leader

The best person to lead this project is Dr. David T. Feinberg, one of the most influential and competent healthcare leaders in the United States. The reason for choosing Feinberg is that he is skillful in managing change and resolving an array of issues facing the healthcare industry. In 2007, Feinberg helped the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center address patient complaints primarily about lack of compassion among nurses and physicians (Gupta, 2019). As a way to solve the problem, Feinberg implemented changes that ultimately improved the relationships between the staff or the facility and its clients (Gupta, 2019). The challenges that UCLA Medical Center was facing at that time are similar to the issues at Lakeland Clinic. The reason is that both cases involve the inability of healthcare providers to build trusting relationships with their communities and clients. Also, the outcome of the two cases is a decline in customer satisfaction.

I possess several leadership skills that Feinberg has demonstrated in managing the healthcare sector. Both of us have emotional intelligence, strong interpersonal, and communication skills. These elements are essential in managing people and, more importantly, leading teams to achieve specific goals. A highly valuable skill related to this leadership characteristic is the ability to build relationships within groups professions. Gupta (2019) said that great leaders in healthcare should have financial expertise and the ability to refine strategic visions for the success of their organizations. One of the factors that make Feinberg an effective leader in the field of healthcare is his in-depth understanding of the challenges facing today's ever-more-complex industry, including complaints from the consumers.

Research by Gupta (2019) indicated that healthcare facilities with physician leaders or chief executive officers outperform those without. The fact that Feinberg has helped several organizations improve their systems and also address customer complaints shows that he is competent in managing change (Gupta, 2019). Some of the leadership skills that I am still nurturing to enhance my competency are mentoring subordinates as well as managing change.

Roles of a Project Leader

Leadership theories enhance an understanding of the responsibilities that senior executives should play, especially in managing projects. The model of transformational leadership best explains the scope of work and roles that an individual leading strategic plan at Lakeland Clinic should play. According to Burns, the proponent of this model, transformational leadership is about the relationship between the followers and the leader (Xu, 2017). The main idea underlying the transformational theory is that leaders should formulate a vision, inspire, and motivate followers as a way to facilitate the achievement of common goals (Xu, 2017).

The first role of the project leader is to develop a plan to help guide the followers to achieve shared goals. Moreover, such a person should develop and manage deliverables. This aspect guides the leader to review the results of the team against their objectives. Secondly, he/she would be leading employees while managing the project. Thirdly, the leader would be delegating work, while assigning tasks to individual members. An example of a member's responsibility would be assessing cultural barriers to the delivery of quality care. Fourthly, such a person would be motivating the team, managing conflicts, and giving feedback to individual members. These roles are in line with the principles of transformational leadership.

Approaches to Facilitate Collaboration

An important strategy to foster collaboration among members of the professional team is offering appropriate training and education. This aspect enables individuals to build collaborative skills, and more importantly, understand expectations and boundaries within the team. This approach to facilitating collaboration, according to Morley and Cashell (2017), allows teams to understand issues that can cause conflicts and how to address them. Morley and Cashell (2017) further said that training and education in various issues enhance cooperation as it helps prevent problems such as poor communication, lack of respect, and trust. Other ways of promoting collaborative relationships are providing a psychologically supportive environment, physical and structural opportunities (Morley & Cashell, 2017).

References

Bennet, D. (2004). The art of collaborative leadership. Organizational Survival in the New World, 131-148. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-7506-7712-7.50018-4

Berghout, M. A., Fabbricotti, I. N., Buljac-Samardzic, M., & Hilders, C. G. (2017). Medical leaders or masters?-A systematic review of medical leadership in hospital settings. PLOS ONE, 12(9), e0184522. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184522

Gupta, A. (2019). Physician versus non-physician CEOs: The effect of a leader's professional background on the quality of hospital management and health care. Journal of Hospital Administration, 8(5), 47. https://doi.org/10.5430/jha.v8n5p47

Morley, L., & Cashell, A. (2017). Collaboration in health care. Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, 48(2), 207-216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmir.2017.02.071

Xu, J. (2017). Leadership theory in clinical practice. Chinese Nursing Research, 4(4), 155-157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnre.2017.10.001