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Is Being a Great Clinician Enough to Be a Great Leader?

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Source: CMSA Today

BY SABINA ZOLOTA, MS, AND CHRISTINA SANCHEZ, LCSW

Trained to be skilled and qualified in their practice, clinicians are exceptionally good at treating and caring for their patients. But is being a great clinician enough to be a successful clinician leader who can thrive in the complex and ever-changing world of healthcare? The traditional tendency in healthcare is to promote excellent clinicians into leadership positions, which is a great recognition of their clinical expertise. However, not enough is done to truly invest in additional developmental support to position excellent clinicians to also be excellent leaders.

The ever-evolving healthcare environment continues to have an increased demand for transformational healthcare leaders as well as systems leaders who can drive coordinated patient-driven care, effectively addressing mental health demands, health inequities, increased regulatory and economic burdens, as well as managing workforce issues such as staff burnout and turnover. Yet, many healthcare professionals are not adequately prepared to take on these high-stakes leadership roles successfully without any formal leadership development courses in undergraduate or graduate studies (Daly, J., et. al., 2023). And, not having robust opportunities to develop these skills in the workplace, they are often left feeling unprepared and unsupported. We must recognize that leaders have a significant impact on work-related well-being, job satisfaction, and retention (Niinihuta, M., et al., 2022) as well as patient satisfaction and outcomes, staff engagement, and morale (Lee, S. E., et al., 2023), and ensure that our organizations have structured pathways and opportunities to support clinician leadership development.

Clinicians are trained to navigate individual patient situations, and many skills from their practice, such as interprofessional collaboration, problem-solving, and relationship building are transferable and valuable leadership skills. In addition to these skills, clinicians need to develop system-level leadership skills to bridge the gap between an excellent clinician and an excellent clinician leader. Organizations must identify and implement structured leadership development programs to bridge this leadership gap, support system-level leadership skill building, and enable clinicians to be equipped with the skills and tools they need to thrive as transformational healthcare leaders (Brigstock, T. et al., 2023).

At our organization, we have recognized these challenges and opportunities and created structured development pathways for new clinician leaders. As we developed our clinician leader pathway framework, it was first essential to identify the system-level competencies and skills clinicians needed to master, ensure ongoing coaching and mentorship experiences, as well as opportunities to apply new leadership learnings to practice. The AONL Nurse Leader Core Competencies provided a framework for effective leadership skill development (AONL, 2022). These competencies include professionalism (adhering to high standards and ethics), communication and relationship management (effectively conveying goals and building trust with others), knowledge of the healthcare system (understanding industry trends and changes), and business skills (exposure to strategic initiatives). Adopting these competencies as a guide helped us to build a framework for the knowledge and skills our new leaders needed to become confident and effective clinician leaders. Additionally, recognizing that these competencies are transferable among disciplines, we were able to leverage the same framework to support clinician leadership development across various clinical disciplines, such as social workers, nurses, and therapists.

Our clinician development pathway framework includes the ability to assess each new clinician leader’s existing leadership skill sets, identify their individual gaps, and pinpoint where they can grow the most. For example, suppose a clinician has substantial knowledge and experience in effective communication. In that case, the focus of their development can be shifted to other skills that will be of most value to their leadership development journey.

Since our organization has an extensive national footprint, employing clinicians across many states and practice areas such as insurance services, home health, and primary care, our clinician development pathways framework needed to offer flexibility in learning styles and accommodate the various work styles and job demands of our new clinician leaders. When our clinicians go through the leadership development pathway specifically designed for them, their development journey consists of synchronous, asynchronous, and experiential components.

  • Synchronous learning through virtual video conferencing enabled real-time engagement on various topics, such as digital leadership and effective presentations, while engaging in meaningful dialogue and peer support. Ensuring peer support further strengthened supportive networks and connections for ongoing learning.
  • Asynchronous learning offered flexibility through self-paced computer-based modules aligned with competency frameworks. As part of the framework, we leveraged relevant modules from our existing educational catalogs. Some challenges that online or self-paced learning can present include technology issues or poor participation due to a lack of prioritization (Regmi & Jones, 2020). Understanding these challenges, we purposefully created a balance of self-paced, synchronous, and interactive learning.
  • Mentoring provided intentional supportive connections with an experienced clinician leader in the organizations. Many clinicians find value in experiential opportunities with tenured clinician leaders; however, what was most important to the new leaders was having the dedicated time for ongoing coaching and support that these clinician leader mentors provided.

The opportunity to apply newly learned leadership competence and professional confidence in practice was crucial to include in the framework. Therefore, through our leadership development framework, we worked through “real life” scenarios – for example, how to leverage strategic, systemic analysis, and system thinking to effectively problem solve. A final capstone specific to the new leader’s practice area, supported by their mentor, not only helped new clinician leaders continue to work through challenges in their practice environment, but it also provided another way to hone new skills such as effective professional presentation, which they delivered to a leadership group of tenured clinician leaders in the organization. Finally, our approach to clinician leadership development extends beyond the completion of the formal new clinician leader program. Ongoing development continues with regularly scheduled touch bases with cohort participants, as well as ongoing mentorship and peer support.

Part of supporting clinicians to grow as leaders of healthcare is also focusing on and providing proper support for their well-being. There is inherent stress in all clinical professions. However, frontline nurse managers, who need to function at a high clinical and interpersonal level while also developing new skills, can be especially impacted by emotional exhaustion, high levels of stress, and burnout. As Dr. Deborah Trautman, American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) president and chief executive officer, highlights, “Today’s nurse must be equipped to address the challenges faced by all healthcare providers, which includes developing the expertise needed to safeguard mental health and well-being within themselves and in others” (AACN, 2024). One of the resources new clinician leaders can be directed to is the Developing Nursing Well-Being and Leadership Tool Kit to support and prepare new nurses with key skills needed to succeed in the healthcare system, specifically in the areas of well-being, self-care, resilience, and leadership (AACN, 2024).

Our healthcare system requires clinicians to continue to grow their skills to navigate change and new challenges. Ensuring structured support for developing new clinician leaders will increase their skills and confidence as transformational healthcare leaders and provide a resilient and healthy workforce capable of navigating any future challenges we may face.

References

  • Daly, J., Jackson, D., Mannix, J., Davidson, P., Hutchinson, M. (2023). The importance of clinical leadership in the hospital setting. Journal of Healthcare Leadership. Full article: The importance of clinical leadership in the hospital setting (tandfonline.com).
  • Laut, R., Wiknik A., LaCroix KM., Bunting D., Pettorini-D’Amico S. Leading the nurse within: Developing confident leadership skills for new graduates. J Contin Educ Nurs. 2018 Aug 1;49(8):356-359. doi: 10.3928/00220124-20180718-06. PMID: 30053306.
  • Lee, S. E. Hyunjie, L., Sang, S. (2023). Nurse managers leadership, patient safety, and quality of care: a systemic review. West J Nurs Res. 2023:45(2):176-185.
  • Membrive-Jiménez MJ, Pradas-Hernández L, Suleiman-Martos N, Vargas-Román K, Cañadas-De la Fuente GA, Gomez-Urquiza JL, De la Fuente-Solana EI (2020). Burnout in nursing managers: A systematic review and meta-analysis of related factors, levels, and prevalence. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Jun 4;17(11):3983. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17113983.
  • Niinihuhta M, Häggman-Laitila A. (2022). A systematic review of the relationships between nurse leaders’ leadership styles and nurses’ work-related well-being. Int J Nurs Pract. 2022 Oct;28(5):e13040. doi: 10.1111/ijn.13040.

Sabina Zolota, MS, is a visionary leader acknowledged for her transformational leadership and ability to interpret strategy into actions that lead to improvements in work culture, employee engagement, wellbeing and retention, and impact business outcomes. In her role as a clinical strategy and practice lead, Sabina currently serves as a key member of Humana’s Chief Nursing Organization Leadership Team where she’s responsible for strategic communications, thought leadership, as well as identifying and driving operational and strategic solutions that improve the experience of nearly ten thousand nurses, care managers, and social workers at the organization, all while positioning Humana as a destination for clinicians.

Throughout her tenure, Sabina is recognized as an enterprise collaborator and contributor to efforts with wide organizational impact, influencing transformation and positive change across Humana. Blending creativity with evidence-informed insights, Sabina has been instrumental in establishing the clinical communities of practice at Humana, launching some of the first podcasts at the organization, and spearheading efforts to support clinician engagement and well-being such as the first ever enterprise-wide peer recognition program.

Sabina serves as a board member of Congress of Bosniaks of North America, a national organization that aims to enrich the active citizenship of Bosniaks in North America through community empowerment, leadership, preservation of heritage, and remembrance of Srebrenica genocide. She is multilingual and, in addition to English, fluently speaks her native Bosnian language as well as Spanish which she extensively studied during her undergraduate education.

Christina Sanchez, LCSW, is a healthcare professional with 20 years of experience. As a clinical strategy and practice lead within the Chief Nursing Organization at Humana, she has practiced within a variety of roles to include clinical, management and strategy.

 

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