Cartoon – Open Door Policy
Category Archives: Leadership Listens
Cartoon – The Meeting Agenda
Adapting leadership for the virtual world
https://mailchi.mp/da2dd0911f99/the-weekly-gist-july-17-2020?e=d1e747d2d8
Recently, a senior executive shared a concern with us about his leadership style during the pandemic: “I have always thought of myself as a good leader. For the first time in my career, I feel like I’m failing.”
His worry was less about making the big decisions needed in a crisis, and more about the ongoing engagement and “forward motion” of his team.
When in-person meetings transitioned to Zoom calls, he was struck by how much of leadership and team building relies on in-person interaction, whether it’s formal group sessions to drive a decision, or the hundreds of informal one-on-one interactions every week in the office. As our small firm went virtual, it’s something we noticed, too. Virtual interactions require a different structure and pace, and it takes more work to engage the full group.
And while no one enjoys an hours-long videoconference, more frequent, shorter calls can build momentum. Dedicating time to sharing personal updates builds the connections lost when we’re not physically together.
But despite the risks, one CEO shared that in a crisis like COVID-19, showing up in person matters: “You can’t always stay at home or in your office. As a leader you have to be out and talking to staff. I know it’s risky but that is really what it takes.
Being there to clearly articulate the go-forward plan.” We’d love to hear your insights about how you’re adapting your leadership approach to navigate this balance, keeping your teams engaged through this difficult and unfamiliar time.
Cartoon – Not Really much of a Leader
Cartoon – Covid 19 Leadership
Cartoon – Pillars of Democracy
“What is it that America has failed to hear?”
https://mailchi.mp/9f24c0f1da9a/the-weekly-gist-june-5-2020?e=d1e747d2d8
“What is it that America has failed to hear?” asked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in March of 1968, calling riots the “language of the unheard”. “It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met.” Stubbornly, shamefully, we continue to turn a deaf ear: to structural racism; to institutionalized inequality; to a pandemic of police brutality and bigotry that chokes off the breath of black Americans as surely as a virus in the lungs or a boot on the neck. But the sound in the streets is thunderous.
We in healthcare must listen. We must hear that what killed George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, and Philando Castile, and Trayvon Martin, and Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others, as surely as the terrible actions of any single person, was the pervasive, insidious virus of racism, long since grown endemic in our country.
This week’s protests are a kind of ventilator, providing emergency breath for a national body in crisis. We must work—urgently—on the therapeutics of structural change and the vaccines of education and understanding.
At Gist Healthcare we are listening, and learning. As a team, we’ve committed to each other to be attentive, invested, empathetic allies, and to dedicate our individual and collective time, talents and treasure to antiracist work, in healthcare and beyond. Our contribution may not be large, and it will never be enough, but at least we hope it will be positive. We’d like to hear your thoughts and suggestions as well. For the moment, and for our colleagues, friends, and families, we stand with the protestors.
Black Lives Matter.
The Wisdom of Mr. Rogers
In 1969, when Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated a year earlier, black citizens weren’t allowed to swim in “white-only” swimming pools. Fred Rogers wanted to send a deliberate message on the May 9, 1969, episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”: He invited Officer Clemmons, a black police officer played by François Clemmons, on his show and asked him if he wanted to cool off by dipping his feet into a children’s wading pool.
Officer Clemmons initially declines the invitation, noting he didn’t have a towel—but Rogers tells Clemmons he could share his. Mr. Rogers joined Clemmons in the pool, breaking the color barrier live on television. When Officer Clemmons had to go, he used Rogers’ towel to dry his feet, as promised. Mr. Rogers left the pool directly after Clemmons and proceeded to use the same towel. Their casual intimacy exposed the bigotry of denying black citizens access to pools, or any other place in society. We need more Mister Rogers in our world now.
Cartoon – Management by Intimidation
Cartoon – Economic Stimulus vs. Leadership
