LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT HIGHLY VALUED
TO DRIVE ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE,
BUT NOT COMMON PRACTICE
L
By Andrew R. McGill, PhD and Jennifer Yessis, PhD
eadership development at all levels
of healthcare organizations is widely
recognized as a linchpin to success,
but in the National Healthcare
Leadership Index survey conducted
by National Center for Healthcare Leadership
(NCHL) in partnership with the National Research
Corporation, many healthcare systems and hospitals
were highly deficient in succession planning and
talent management for top administrators compared
to benchmarking organizations from outside of
healthcare. In fact, the disparity for medical leaders
and nurse leaders was even greater.
The National Healthcare Leadership Index survey was developed and pilot
tested in 2007, and is being implemented annually to healthcare systems and
hospitals to raise awareness of leadership best practices and to provide these
organizations with the ability to examine their relative strengths and opportunities
with regard to leadership development. The individual system/hospital results
can be compared to other healthcare organizations and non-healthcare Fortune
100 organizations.
The 2008 National Healthcare Leadership Index survey will be sent out again
this summer to all hospitals and health systems. The leadership survey includes 59
questions for hospital executives to respond in nine areas including Leadership
Competencies, Governance, Diversity & Cultural Proficiency, Succession
Planning/Talent Management, Recruitment & Selection, Leadership Learning &
Development, Performance Management, Leadership Reward & Recognition, and
Job Design/Work Systems.
“These results underscore an important disparity
in leadership development in healthcare,” NCHL
President and CEO Marie E. Sinioris said. “First,
the survey found that on a seven-point scale rating a
succession planning process that incorporates talent
management for leaders, healthcare administrators
averaged 4.2 while leaders at top benchmarking,
Fortune 100 organizations averaged 6.7. And
through research in our demonstration projects,
NCHL has learned that healthcare organizations
benefit enormously when all members of
the leadership team—physicians, nurses and
administrators—are provided with leadership
development and talent management, and that is
an essential ingredient to achieving organizational
excellence. These survey results are an excellent
opportunity for health systems—as they seek to
improve patient outcomes, quality and safety—to
extend leadership development to their entire senior
team members and at all levels of the organization.”
Indeed, some healthcare systems with crossprofessional leadership programs already in
place scored highly on the leadership survey. At
one of the healthcare organizations performing
exceptionally well on the leadership survey,
suburban-Chicago-based Provena Health, the
commitment to leadership has been in place for
several years. “First and foremost, Provena has
been conducting three Leadership Development
Institutes each year to support leadership growth
and share best practices among hundreds of leaders
from across the system for the past five years now,”
said Jill Sheehan, system director of organizational
®2008 NRC Picker
3-0608-A-3001
development at Provena. “More recently, we’ve
been working to close the gaps between desirable
and actual performance by evaluating our leaders on
10 leadership competency standards aligned to our
values, which are central to our mission at Provena
Health.”
That theme was common among top performers.
“It’s really been an emphasis on people, focus and
strategy for clinical and administrative leaders across
our system,” said Sharon Hardy, vice presidentorganizational effectiveness at Virtua Health System
in New Jersey, another leading performer in the
leadership survey. “It starts with people – hiring the
best, creating a caring culture, linking mission and
values first. Then we get to the rigor and process
tools at Virtua University, certification, developing
leadership, black belts (with process skills), strategic
alignment, business development. But it always
focuses on the people.”
Overall, the survey showed that 17 percent of
administrative leaders received “a great deal” of
talent management compared with 6 percent for
medical leaders and 9 percent for nursing leaders.
Additionally, while 14 percent of administrators
were provided with “a great deal”’ of succession
planning, medical leaders received it 7 percent of
the time and nursing leaders 8 percent. And while
18 percent of administrators participating in the
survey used 360-degree feedback “a great deal” of
the time that was true among 13 percent of nursing
leaders and 6 percent of medical leaders.
Table 1. Hospital Executive Responses to National Healthcare Leadership Index
Question
Average Hospital Score (1 – Not at All
to 7 – A Great Deal)
Succession plan for administrative
staff
Succession plan involving talent
management at multiple levels
Succession plan for nurse leadership
360 Degree Feedback for
Administration
Succession plan for medical
leadership
360 Degree Feedback for Nursing
Leadership
360 Degree Feedback for Medical
Leadership
4.5
4.2
4.2
4.2
3.6
3.3
2.7
*Hospital executives were asked about the organization’s performance on each item from 1 (not at all) to 7 (a great
deal)
Organizations responding to the survey also said
that despite their strong belief in the importance of
succession planning, talent management, and 360degree feedback, the lack of financial resources,
time, and senior management motivation could
be barriers to implementing such programs, even
though the benefits were incontrovertible.
plan with many of our mid-level managers.”
• “We have a lot of work to do in this area.”
• “We say leadership development is important;
but our actions do not match that.
• “Leadership development is absolutely essential,
“at this time the organization is financially
unable to attend to leadership development.”
In open-ended comments, some survey participants
explained what happens when leadership training is
left unattended:
“One of the most important things NCHL is
researching is increasing the effectiveness of
senior leadership teams,” Sinioris said. “Not only
will healthcare organization benefit greatly when
all members of management receive leadership
development, but the teams themselves benefit
from the opportunity to work and grow together.
• “We have in the past just promoted people to
“fill spots” without training and we are paying
the price of that now. We are in a remediation
About the National Center for Healthcare
Leadership
The National Center for Healthcare Leadership
(NCHL) is a not-for-profit organization that is
an industry catalyst to assure the availability of
accountable and transformational healthcare
leadership for the 21st century. Its vision is
to optimize the health of the public through
leadership and organizational excellence. As the
authoritative and objective source on healthcare
leadership, NCHL conducts research on global
best practices and tests new models for leadership
excellence within its Leadership Excellence
Networks (LENS). It provides innovative
leadership development programs through the
NCHL and GE Institute for Transformational
Leadership and through collaborative relationships
with other leading organizations. For more
information please visit NCHL’s website at www.
nchl.org.