Healthcare providers spend years perfecting their skills and refining their specialties, but they often lack the leadership training required to wield the level of influence and relation-building skills they need to succeed.
Due to the nature of the healthcare industry, only the most technically skilled among these professionals are placed in positions of leadership—often without considering their emotional intelligence or people skills.
After assuming these new leadership positions, these individuals quickly find themselves struggling to inspire their teams, build strong patient-provider relationships, and bring in the profits they need.
If you are a leader in the healthcare space (if you have even just one person reporting to you), here are 5 signs that you should consider working with an executive leadership coach.
1. Lack of Vision, Alignment and/or Execution
If you are noticing a disconnect between your expectations for your team, their performance, and the outcome, there is likely a roadblock in one of these 3 key areas of your leadership:
- Vision: Have you identified the big picture? Do you have clearly-defined goals for your team and your practice? Have you sought counsel and feedback regarding this vision from other healthcare leaders you trust?
- Alignment: How well have you communicated the big picture and goals to your team? Do they know your expectations and how to meet them? Have you asked for their input and perspectives? Are you successfully inspiring and encouraging them as they work towards those goals?
- Execution: How well is your team moving forward toward the big picture? Are they losing steam? How is each person’s overall performance? How are you measuring their progress? What are your methods for providing correction and addressing problems along the way?
2. Poor Patient Satisfaction Ratings
One of the most obvious ways to tell whether or not you need leadership coaching is by paying attention to your patients’ satisfaction ratings. Do they complain about how they were served by you or someone on your team? Depending on the complaints, these poor reviews could indicate that you need to improve your people skills and relationships with your patients, or that your team is not aligned with your vision and expectations for your practice. A leadership coach is prepared to train you on how to accomplish both of these issues.
3. Emotional Outbursts
How well do you receive negative feedback? What is your instinctive response when something doesn’t go according to plan? How do you respond to difficult people?
If you find yourself struggling to keep your temper in check or feeling like you can’t keep your outward expressions of emotions under control, working with a leadership coach to improve your emotional intelligence can help. Part of emotional intelligence is learning what these triggers are and developing effective responses and habits.
4. Poor Team/Employee Morale
How is your team’s energy? Would you describe the members of your team as engaged, positive, and hard-working? If not, it could be that they need a leader who knows how to inspire them and boost their confidence. A leadership coach works with you to define your vision and expectations for your team’s culture, and then helps you develop actionable steps you can take to lead them to success.
5. Employee Revolving Door
When leadership is poor, it’s common for there to be a high employee turnover rate. This can happen for many reasons, including poor relationships between employees and their superior, goal misalignment, poor team culture, unclear expectations, and team members who feel unseen or undervalued. With proper leadership training, it becomes easier to identify these gaps and develop plans to address them.
Are you a good candidate for executive leadership coaching?
Take my free leadership assessment today to find out.
About Dr. Wilkerson, PD, MBA, PCC.
Do you want to increase your impact? Do you want to increase profits under your leadership? Do you want to develop and use your abilities to the fullest to better connect with and lead others? Executive Leadership Coaching covers these bases. Dr. Jerrund Wilkerson, PD, MBA, PCC, has more than 30 years of successful executive leadership coaching in the United States and internationally.
As a licensed provider and professionally certified coach, he is particularly passionate about helping develop effective leaders in the healthcare community. Dr. Wilkerson has coached and trained thousands of managers and leaders.
CLICK HERE to learn more.