Category Archives: Leadership

Northwell CEO Urging Healthcare Providers to Mobilize for Gun Control

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Advocacy, American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), American Hospital Association (AHA), American Medical Association (AMA), Call to Action, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Corporate Responsibility, Leadership, Leadership Conversation, Mental Health, Political Inaction, Public Health, Public Inaction, Public Safety, Shareholder Primacy, Universal Background Checks • Leave a comment

https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/strategy/northwell-ceo-urging-healthcare-providers-mobilize-gun-control

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The prominent executive is pushing beyond a letter he released last week and is now seeking to rally his peers around solving what he sees as a public health crisis.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

‘All of us have allowed this crisis to grow,’ he wrote in a letter published Thursday in The New York Times.

Healthcare CEOs should put pressure on politicians without resorting to ‘blatant partisanship,’ he said.

Northwell Health President and CEO Michael J. Dowling isn’t done pushing fellow leaders of healthcare provider organizations to take political action in the aftermath of deadly mass shootings.

Dowling addressed healthcare CEOs in a “call to action“ published online last week by the Great Neck, New York–based nonprofit health system. Now he’s published a full-page print version of that letter in Thursday’s national edition of The New York Times, while reaching out directly to peers who could join him in a to-be-determined collective action plan to curb gun violence.

“To me, it’s an obligation of people who are in leadership positions to take some action, speak out, and prepare their organizations to address this as a public health issue,” Dowling tells HealthLeaders.

Wading into such a politically charged topic is sure to give some healthcare CEOs pause. Even if they keep their advocacy within all legal and ethical bounds, they could face rising distrust from community members who oppose further restrictions on firearms. But leaders have a responsibility to thread that needle for the sake of community health, Dowling says.

“I do anticipate that there’ll be criticism about this, but then again, if you’re in a leadership role, criticism is what you’ve got to deal with,” he says.

Dowling argues that healthcare leaders have successfully spoken out about other public health crises, such as smoking and drug use. But they have largely failed to respond adequately as gun violence inflicts considerable harm—both physical and emotional—on the communities they serve, he says.

“It is easy to point fingers at members of Congress for their inaction, the vile rhetoric of some politicians who stoke the flames of hatred, the lax laws that provide far-too-easy access to firearms, or the NRA’s intractable opposition to common sense legislation,” Dowling wrote in the print version of his letter. “It is far more difficult to look in the mirror and see what we have or haven’t done. All of us have allowed this crisis to grow. Sadly, as a nation, we have become numb to the bloodshed.”

His letter proposes a four-part agenda for healthcare leaders to tackle together:

  1. Put pressure on elected officials who “fail to support sensible gun legislation.” He urged healthcare CEOs to increase their political activity but avoid “blatant partisanship.” The online version of his letter links to OpenSecrets.org‘s repository of information on campaign contributions from gun rights interest groups to politicians.
  2. Invest in mental health without stigmatizing. Most mass murderers aren’t “psychotic or delusional,” Dowling wrote. Rather, they’re usually just disgruntled people who let their anger erupt into violence, which is why firearms sales to people at risk of harming themselves or others should be prohibited, he wrote.
  3. Increase awareness and training. Individuals shouldn’t be allowed to buy or access certain types of firearms “that serve no other purpose than to inflict mass casualties,” he wrote. Healthcare leaders should support efforts to spot risk factors and better understand so-called “red flag” laws that empower officials to take guns away from people deemed to be a potential threat to themselves or others, he wrote.
  4. Support universal background checks. In the same way that doctors shouldn’t write prescriptions without knowing a patient’s medical history to ensure the drug will do no harm, gun sellers shouldn’t be allowed to complete a transaction without having a background check conducted on the buyer, Dowling wrote, adding that a majority of Americans support this idea.

The letter notes that the U.S. has nearly 40,000 firearms-related deaths each year and that several dozen people have died in mass shootings thus far in 2019, including 31 earlier this month in separate shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

Corporate Responsibility

The way for-profit companies think about their relationship with the communities in which they operate has been shifting for some time. The most recent evidence of that shift came earlier this week, when the influential Business Roundtable released a revised statement on the principles of corporate governance, responding to criticism over the so-called “primacy of shareholders.”

The 181 CEOs who signed onto the new statement said they would run their business not just for the good of their shareholders but also for the good of customers, employees, suppliers, and communities. There’s some similarity between that updated notion of corporate responsibility and the sort of advocacy work Dowling wants to see from his for-profit and nonprofit peers alike.

Every single organization has a social mission, and large organizations that have sway in a local community have a responsibility to the community’s health, Dowling says.

“A healthy community helps and creates a healthy organization,” he says.

One major factor that may be pushing more CEOs to take a public stance on politically sensitive issues—or at least giving them the cover to do so confidently—is the generational shift in the U.S. workforce. Although most Americans overall say CEOs shouldn’t speak out, younger workers overwhelmingly support such action, as Fortune‘s Alan Murray reported, citing the magazine’s own polling.

Dowling says he has received hundreds of letters, emails, and phone calls from members of Northwell Health’s 70,000-person workforce expressing support in light of his original letter published online last week.

“The feedback has been absolutely universal in support,” he says.

But Which Policies?

Even among healthcare professionals who agree it’s appropriate to speak out on politically charged topics, there’s sharp disagreement over which policies lawmakers should enact and whether those policies would infringe on the public’s Second Amendment rights.

The group Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership (DRGO) rejects the premise of Dowling’s argument: “Firearms are not a public health issue,” the DRGO website states, arguing that responsible gun ownership has been shown to benefit the public health by preventing violent crime.

Dennis Petrocelli, MD, a psychiatrist in Virginia, wrote a DRGO article that called Virginia’s proposed red flag law “misguided” and perhaps “the single greatest threat to our constitutional freedoms ever introduced in the Commonwealth of Virginia.” His concern is that the government might be able to take guns away without any real evidence of a threat.

While gun rights advocates may see Dowling as merely their latest political foe, Dowling contends that he’s pushing for a cause that can peaceably coexist with the constitutional right to bear arms.

“You can have effective, reasonable legislative action around guns that still protects the essence of what many people believe to be the core of the Second Amendment,” Dowling says. “It’s not an either/or situation.”

Others Speaking Out

Dowling isn’t, of course, the only healthcare leader speaking out about gun violence.

On the same day last week that Northwell Health published Dowling’s online call to action, Ascension published a similar letter from President and CEO Joseph R. Impicciche, JD, MHA, who referred to gun violence in American society as a “burgeoning public health crisis.”

“Silence in the face of such tragedy and wrongdoing falls short of our mission to advocate for a compassionate and just society,” Impicciche wrote, citing the health system’s Catholic commitment to defend human dignity.

The American Medical Association (AMA) and American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) each issued statements this month calling for public policy changes in response to these recent shootings, continuing their long-running advocacy work on the topic.

American Hospital Association 2019 Chairman Brian Gragnolati, who is president and CEO of Atlantic Health System in Morristown, New Jersey, said in a statement this month that hospitals and health systems “play a role in the larger conversation and are determined to use our collective voice to prevent more senseless tragedies.”

 

 

 

Coalition of 181 CEOs say society should matter alongside profit

Posted on by • Posted in CEO, Community Benefit, Executive Compensation, Leadership, Purpose of a Corporation, Shareholder Primacy • Leave a comment

Chief executives who are members of the Business Roundtable, include, left to right, front row: Julie Sweet of Accenture North America, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, Tim Cook of Apple, Robert F. Smith of Vista Equity Partners of Austin. Back row: Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mary Barra of General Motors and Larry Fink of BlackRock.

Nearly 200 chief executives, including the leaders of Apple, Pepsi and Walmart, tried on Monday to redefine the role of business in society — and how companies are perceived by an increasingly skeptical public.

Breaking with decades of long-held corporate orthodoxy, the Business Roundtable issued a statement on “the purpose of a corporation,” arguing that companies should no longer advance only the interests of shareholders. Instead, the group said, they must also invest in their employees, protect the environment and deal fairly and ethically with their suppliers.

“While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders,” the group, a lobbying organization that represents many of America’s largest companies, said in a statement. “We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.”

The shift comes at a moment of increasing distress in corporate America, as big companies face mounting global discontent over income inequality, harmful products and poor working conditions.

On the Democratic presidential campaign trail, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been vocal about the role of big business in perpetuating problems with economic mobility and climate change. Lawmakers are looking into the dominance of technology companies like Amazon and Facebook.

There was no mention at the Roundtable of curbing executive compensation, a lightning-rod topic when the highest-paid 100 chief executives make 254 times the salary of an employee receiving the median pay at their company. And hardly a week goes by without a major company getting drawn into a contentious political debate. As consumers and employees hold companies to higher ethical standards, big brands increasingly have to defend their positions on worker pay, guns, immigration, President Trump and more.

“They’re responding to something in the zeitgeist,” said Nancy Koehn, a historian at Harvard Business School. “They perceive that business as usual is no longer acceptable. It’s an open question whether any of these companies will change the way they do business.”

The Business Roundtable did not provide specifics on how it would carry out its newly stated ideals, offering more of a mission statement than a plan of action. But the companies pledged to compensate employees fairly and provide “important benefits,” as well as training and education. They also vowed to “protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses” and “foster diversity and inclusion, dignity and respect.”

It was an explicit rebuke of the notion that the role of the corporation is to maximize profits at all costs — the philosophy that has held sway on Wall Street and in the boardroom for 50 years. Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago economist who is the doctrine’s most revered figure, famously wrote in The New York Times in 1970 that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.”

This mind-set informed the corporate raiders of the 1980s and contributed to an unswerving focus on quarterly earnings reports. It found its way into pop culture, when in the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” Gordon Gekko declared, “Greed is good.” More recently, it inspired a new generation of activist investors who pushed companies to slash jobs as a way to enrich themselves.

“The ideology of shareholder primacy has contributed to the economic inequality we see today in America,” Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and a Pepsi board member, said in an interview. “The Chicago school of economics is so embedded in the psyche of investors and legal theory and the C.E.O. mind-set. Overcoming that won’t be easy.”

The Business Roundtable included its own articulation of the theory in an official doctrine in 1997, writing that “the paramount duty of management and of boards of directors is to the corporation’s stockholders.” Each version of its principles published over the last 20 years has stated that corporations exist principally to serve their shareholders.

But by last year, the Business Roundtable’s language was out of step with the times. Many chief executives, including BlackRock’s Larry Fink, had begun calling on companies to be more responsible. Businesses were pledging to fight climate change, reduce income inequality and improve public health. And at gatherings like the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the discussions often centered on how businesses could help solve thorny global problems.

“The threshold has moved substantially for what people expect from a company,” Klaus Schwab, the chairman of the World Economic Forum, said in an interview. “It’s more than just producing profits for the shareholders.”

Last year, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase and the chairman of the Business Roundtable, began an effort to update its principles. “We looked at this thing that was written in 1997 and we didn’t agree with it,” Mr. Dimon said in an interview. “It didn’t fairly describe what we think our jobs are.”

Mr. Dimon proposed making a formal revision to the annual statement at a Business Roundtable board meeting in Washington this spring. It then fell to Alex Gorsky, the chief executive of Johnson & Johnson, who runs the group’s governance committee, to create the language.

“There were times when I felt like Thomas Jefferson,” Mr. Gorsky said in an interview.

While the group cast the change in language as an embrace of new corporate ideals, it was also a tacit acknowledgment of the heightened pressures facing companies across the country — including many that signed the document.

In 2017, after the president’s initially tepid response to the violent white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Va., the chief executives of several major companies disbanded White House business advisory groups in protest. Walmart, the nation’s largest gun seller, is under pressure after a series of mass shootings, including the recent massacre at its store in El Paso. Amazon, the giant online retailer, is facing scrutiny from lawmakers who say it avoids paying taxes and uses its dominance to hurt competitors.

And protesters have mobilized across the country to call for a higher minimum wage.

For companies to truly make good on their lofty promises, they will need Wall Street to embrace their idealism, too. Until investors start measuring companies by their social impact instead of their quarterly returns, systemic change may prove elusive.

Nowhere has the new scrutiny on corporations been more pronounced than on the presidential campaign trail. On Monday, Mr. Sanders said in an interview that the Business Roundtable was “feeling the pressure from working families all over the country.”

“I don’t believe what they’re saying for a moment,” he said. “If they were sincere, they would talk about raising the minimum wage in this country to a living wage, the need for the rich and powerful to pay their fair share of taxes.”

In a statement Monday, Ms. Warren called the announcement “a welcome change” but cautioned that “without real action, it’s meaningless.”

“These big corporations can start following through on their words by paying workers more instead of spending billions on buybacks,” she said.

While the new statement of purpose represents a sizable shift from the group’s longstanding principles, it was not the first time Business Roundtable had taken a position on a social issue. Last August, the group denounced President Trump’s immigration policies, describing family separations as “cruel and contrary to American values.”

Monday’s statement represented an even broader shift, signaling companies’ willingness to engage on issues of pay, diversity and environmental protection. Several of the executives who signed the letter said the group would soon offer more detailed proposals on how corporations can live up to the ideals it outlined, rather than focusing purely on economic policies.

“It’s a real divergence considering everything we’ve done in the past has been around policy,” said Chuck Robbins, the chief executive of Cisco, who is on the group’s board, adding, “This is just the first piece.”

The executives quickly pointed out that they had not forgotten about investors.

“You can provide great returns for your shareholders and great benefits for your employees and run your business in a responsible way,” said Brian Moynihan, the chief executive of Bank of America.

But the statement’s lack of specific proposals also drew skepticism.

“If the Business Roundtable is serious, it should tomorrow throw its weight behind legislative proposals that would put the teeth of the law into these boardroom platitudes,” said Anand Giridharadas, the author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.” “Corporate magnanimity and voluntary virtue are not going to solve these problems.”

 

 

 

Where the AHA is focusing its lobbying efforts in September

Posted on by • Posted in American Hospital Association (AHA), Health Policy, High Drug Prices, Leadership, Medicaid Disproportionate Share Reimbursement (DSH), Surprise Bills • Leave a comment

https://www.aha.org/news/perspective/2019-08-16-perspective-gearing-busy-september-capitol-hill

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Two weeks ago, I wrote about the important role AHA member hospitals and health system leaders play in advocating for the field. This week, I’ll tell you exactly what we’re advocating for when Congress returns in September … and how you can help.
 
Here’s where things stand: There will be three issues before Congress next month that could greatly affect our field: surprise medical billing, the planned Medicaid disproportionate share hospital cuts and prescription drug pricing.
 
The AHA and its members strongly support protecting patients from surprise medical bills. However, we have concerns about the proposals in the House Energy & Commerce Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, which both contain a rate-setting approach for settling out-of-network claims.
 
We believe providers and insurers should continue to be permitted to negotiate payment rates for services provided … and we strongly oppose approaches that would impose arbitrary rates on providers. Hospitals and health systems work hard to align physician networks, but we cannot compromise independent physicians’ abilities to negotiate fair contract terms with payers. These approaches would add unnecessary complexity and burden to the system.
 
On Medicaid DSH, legislators need to act before Oct. 1 or $4 billion in automatic cuts to hospitals and health systems will go into effect. This will be followed by another $8 billion the following year. If these cuts proceed, they will threaten our ability to care for the most vulnerable members of society. The good news is that there’s strong support in the House for preventing these cuts from kicking in: The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed legislation last month that would eliminate the Medicaid DSH cuts for the next two fiscal years and reduce the cuts by half in the following year. So let’s make sure the Senate acts on this.
 
In addition, on drug pricing, legislators recognize that skyrocketing drug prices — as well as shortages for many critical medicines — are hurting patients and the hospitals and health systems that care for them each day. The Senate Finance Committee has taken an important step forward by advancing a drug pricing package to the full Senate. More work needs to be done, though … especially in the House.
 
Here’s where you come in: Your legislators need to hear from you. Urge them to protect patients while rejecting proposals such as rate-setting or setting a “reference” or “benchmark” price. Keep encouraging them to prevent the Medicaid DSH cuts from kicking in so we can make sure the most vulnerable can access care. And tell them how important it is to rein in the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs.
 
You can read our latest Action Alert here, which includes key resources for talking with your legislators over the congressional recess.
 
On Sept. 10, we’re holding an advocacy day on Capitol Hill … so please make plans to join us if you can and add your voice to those of your colleagues.
 
At the same time, as we all know, the recent tragic events in El Paso, Dayton and Gilroy have increased the focus on addressing gun violence. Be certain: We will continue to give voice to the fact that violence is a serious health problem, as hospitals and health systems are on the front lines of taking care of the victims and serving their communities. Beyond supporting research and education and highlighting the innovative actions taken by our members to address all forms of community violence, we’ll also continue to closely monitor evolving efforts to develop bipartisan, consensus legislation in regard to more specific approaches to address this serious problem. 
 
You are leaders in your communities. You are the experts on health care. And when you speak up, your senators and representatives listen. Together, it’s time to engage with them so we can ensure every hospital and health system has the tools they need to always be there, ready to care.

 

Ex-CEOs at for-profits remain on payroll as consultants

Posted on by • Posted in Board, CEO, Continuity, Employment Agreement, Institutional Knowledge, Intellectual Property, Leadership, Leadership Transition, Noncompete, Noncompete Agreements, Post-Employment Consulting, Sounding Board • Leave a comment

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/compensation/ex-ceos-profits-remain-payroll-consultants?utm_source=modern-healthcare-daily-finance&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190819&utm_content=article1-readmore

For some hospital chains and health insurers, CEO departures are anything but a clean break. Employment agreements outline long, expensive goodbyes that compensation experts say may be designed in part to enforce noncompete agreements.

Investor-owned companies like HCA Healthcare and health insurer Anthem have contracts in place with current and recently departed CEOs outlining the terms of paid consulting gigs they step into once their tenures as the top executive end. The contracts ensure leadership will continue to be paid handsomely for scaled-back workloads.

Even though Joseph Swedish retired from Anthem’s top spot in November 2017, the company pays him $4.5 million per year plus benefits to serve as a consultant and senior adviser to the CEO, currently Gail Boudreaux. The contract, which runs until May 2020, doesn’t spell out specific time commitments, but says he’ll perform duties assigned to him by the CEO “from time to time.” Anthem didn’t respond to requests for an explanation about the agreement.

Former HCA CEO R. Milton Johnson, who stepped down at the end of 2018, will make up to $3 million in base pay, stock awards and bonus pay in calendar 2019 plus benefits for his role as executive adviser. He also served as HCA’s board chairman through April 26. The agreement requires he work 20% of his average level of service in the three years before stepping down.

It’s not clear how common it is for companies to keep former CEOs on their payrolls as consultants. Modern Healthcare’s analysis was limited to large publicly traded health systems and insurers, but the practice could also take place at private and not-for-profit healthcare companies, although those contracts would not be publicly available.

Such deals may be struck in part to add teeth to noncompete agreements that preclude those CEOs from working at similar companies in the years immediately following their employment, said David McMillan, managing principal of strategy and integration at consultancy PYA. Noncompete agreements tend to be difficult to enforce, and adding pay into the mix strengthens them, he said.

“This might be a nice workaround to say, ‘I have you under contract and I’m compensating you. As part of that contract, you can’t compete with me,’ ” McMillan said. “In essence, I’ve just monetized the noncompete and created more enforceability so I don’t lose intellectual property.”

Several of the CEOs with consulting agreements also have noncompete agreements. HCA’s Johnson, for example, can’t engage in any work that competes with HCA for two years after his advisory role ends.

Dallas-based hospital chain Tenet Healthcare Corp.’s employment agreement with its current CEO, Ron Rittenmeyer, ends June 30, 2021. In each of the two years that follow, Tenet will pay Rittenmeyer $750,000 for working a maximum of eight days per month as a consultant. Rittenmeyer is also covered under a noncompete agreement that lasts for one year after he steps down as CEO.

Institutional knowledge

A Tenet spokeswoman said post-employment consulting is a common way to ensure smooth transitions from one leadership team to another.

Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems’ former chief financial officer, Larry Cash, retired in May 2017, but still makes $300,000 a year working as a consultant for the investor-owned hospital chain. His employment agreement, which runs through March 2020, bars him from working for any CHS competitors, affiliates or suppliers during his time as a consultant.

The agreement with Cash gives CHS access to his 20 years of historical knowledge of company matters, CHS spokeswoman Tomi Galin wrote in an email.

Beyond enforcing noncompete agreements, there are other operational benefits to keeping former CEOs on the payroll. It adds continuity during the CEO transition period, with the former CEO acting as a sounding board for the new one, said Allen Reed, a partner in Odgers Berndtson’s healthcare and life sciences practices.

Deb Bilak, a partner with human resources consultancy Mercer, said companies sometimes transition the outgoing CEO to a consulting role when that executive has not yet completed a strategic initiative that was launched during his or her tenure. While the practice happens in other industries, it may be more common in healthcare given ongoing transformation in the sector.

“There’s so much going on in healthcare and health plans as far as consolidation and transformation that we are seeing that they want to retain that knowledge for a period of time,” Bilak said.

Compensation for consulting is typically based on what the executive was making as CEO and the time commitment required, Bilak said.

The consulting gigs, while high-paying, don’t pay the executives at the levels they made as CEO.

HCA’s Johnson made about $21.4 million in total compensation in 2018. Tenet’s Rittenmeyer made nearly $15 million in total compensation that year. Anthem CEO Swedish, meanwhile, made about $18.6 million in total compensation in 2017, his last year in that role.

Consulting agreements carry the potential downside of undermining the incoming CEO, especially if that person was recruited externally and there’s no established relationship between the new CEO and the organization, Paul Bohne, managing partner and healthcare practice leader with WittKieffer, wrote in an email. Staff members, directors and physicians are accustomed to the former CEO making decisions, and it can be tough to break those habits.

“Even with the best intentions, it is difficult to decondition others in the ways they were accustomed to working with the outgoing CEO,” Bohne said.

Not all outgoing CEOs become consultants. Organizations that want to retain the CEO’s knowledge may opt to put the executive on the board of directors instead.

After Michael Neidorff retires as CEO of Medicaid managed-care insurer Centene Corp. in 2023, for example, he’ll stay on as executive chairman of the board for a year before becoming non-executive board chairman, according to a February 2019 amendment to Neidorff’s employment agreement.

The agreement doesn’t detail compensation, but states that “for the remainder of his life,” Neidorff will have access to a full-time administrative assistant and an office at the company’s headquarters. During his time as chairman and for five years after, Centene will require he use the company’s aircraft for all air travel.

Longtime DaVita CEO Kent Thiry will make up to $2 million in base and bonus pay for serving as executive chairman of the company’s board for one year following his retirement, which was effective June 1. That’s a far cry from his $32 million in total compensation in 2018, but much more than DaVita’s director salaries that year, which ranged from about $323,000 to $445,000.

Thiry continues to provide counsel and is active in the company’s policy efforts to deliver integrated kidney care, DaVita spokeswoman Courtney Culpepper wrote in an email.

The difference in pay could spell problems if fellow directors protest the disparity, Reed said.

“That’s probably where it would be more favorable to have a consulting engagement,” he said.

On the other hand, directors have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to the company, McMillan said.

“The additional value the organization is getting is the duty of care that comes along with a board position,” he said.

 

 

 

Everybody’s leaving!

Posted on by • Posted in Leadership, Recruiting, Talent, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment

https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/nick-saban-alabama-assistant-coaches-michael-locksley%E2%80%8B-maryland-football.html?utm_source=incthismorning

Next time you recruit someone amazing to your business, only to have that person leave for a bigger opportunity elsewhere, think about Nick Saban.

Saban, the head football coach at the University of Alabama, is considered one of the greatest college coaches of all time. His teams have won six national championships — five at Alabama and one at Louisiana State University — tied with another Alabama coaching legend, Bear Bryant, for most in college football history.

Now, he’s getting credit for a statistic that might seem a mixed blessing, but one that great leaders will recognize as a compliment: Saban’s teams endure (or maybe “enjoy”) near-constant churn among his assistant coaches. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out on Sunday, not a single on-field assistant coach from Alabama’s national championship victory in 2017 remains on the team today.

Thirty-eight assistants have moved on since 2007. Most of them leave for jobs with higher profiles or more responsibility elsewhere. Last year, USA Today calculated that there were 15 former Saban assistants in head coaching jobs in either the NFL or college football. Add another to that list: Michael Locksley left Alabama earlier this year to become the head coach at the University of Maryland.

As a head coach, and a coaching recruiter, Saban says he’s only interested in assistants that he believes will be very successful — making it unsurprising to him that they’re later recruited away from him.

“I think if you look at most of the coming and going, it’s people getting better jobs,” he told the Journal. “I actually look for people who have goals and aspirations, who are hard workers and very committed to what they do. So people sometimes favor hiring guys that have been in this program.”

The constant churn arguably drives innovation, too. New assistant coaches have the chance to advocate for new strategies. That makes it harder for opposing teams to predict what Alabama will do on the field. 

There’s a saying: Good leaders attract followers; great leaders create more leaders.

If that’s true, then count Saban as a leader with an example worth learning from, no matter what your business or calling may be. Feel better about losing your top people when it happens. It’s inevitable if you’re a great leader.