Hi Pierre,
Excellent post and it is very nice to read you. I appreciate you providing links to your previous posts outlining the background of the service provider and care organization. Being an educator, I do not have a lot of understanding of health care systems. The links filled in the gaps for me.
I find interesting the juxtaposition of excellent quality service with the poor care of employees. It reminds me of the dysfunctional family dynamic I grew up in, where everything was a polished picture-perfect front but there was an emotionally abusive situation behind the scenes. Although you state you feel the need to work on self-reflection as part of your three corrective actions, I find your thought experiments (“Make things worse” and “Make things better”) to be highly metacognitive! Knowing you in person, I also find you to be questioning of your motives. (Just a note that I’m under a pseudonym but we sat beside each other all of 500, 591, and I saw you curl up in a ball during one of your presentations in 503 ?)
Back to you, though. I’m also fascinated that you point to the dominant employee culture as a significant factor for the perpetuation of dysfunction in the service provider organization, if I am reading you correctly. Linking to Marcelo’s work in Paraguay, you both refer to the dominant culture as being fatalistic, making it difficult for you both to implement servant leadership strategies. Do you find a similar trend in your current employment? If not, why?
“Frontline staff bring valuable insight invisible to me and can implement small changes which may lead to significant paradigm shifts.” Your comment reminds me of Northouse (2016), who notes, “a participative leader consults with followers, obtains their ideas and opinions, and integrates their suggestions into the decisions about how the group or organization will proceed” (P. 118). As a high school vice principal, I am in my office a lot. Small details which may not seem significant, can accumulate by others communicating with me, creating a fuller picture of what might be going on with a situation. These details are invaluable and imperative in providing interventions for students. Like a compound eye of a bee, with the hundreds of ommatidia which catch just one part of the picture, like a pixel in a computer image. When they all work together, they form a single image for the bee. Like the manifold wisdom of God, represented by each person in the body of Christ (Eph. 3:10). Valuing your staff will ensure they continue to trust you with important details to provide excellent care for your patients.
“I tend to ‘dump and run’” Thank you for being honest and forthright about your areas requiring growth. If you read my 4.1 post, you will see how I also struggle with delegating. You rightly acknowledge “I assume everyone thinks the same way I do.” I wonder, do you acknowledge this to your staff when you’ve done this? How have they responded? Have you learned anything new from this?
As a side, I also wonder why you don’t provide page numbers to your quotes? I want to find some of those nifty words you are citing!
Blessings! Again, I enjoyed reading you!
Stella
References:
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. (7th ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA. SAGE Publications