Five Most Important Leadership Qualities In Healthcare

In a healthcare organization like any other organization, good leadership is important and critical for the organization success. Five most important leadership qualities in healthcare are Conviction, visionary, possessing emotional intelligence, decision making, and critical thinking.
1. Exceptional leaders are strongly driven by their personal convictions, which may include religious beliefs, deeply held connections to a community, or a fundamental sense of morality.1 The kind of leader with personal conviction, have high integrity and ethics and are comfortable with their values and beliefs and at the same time they are also able to put their convictions in check and value other viewpoints.
2. Being visionary refers to a leader’s capacity
Emotional intelligence is the knowledge needed to effectively communicate on an interpersonal level.1 Effective leaders possess emotional intelligence because relationships are the primary driver for both success and failure of the organization, therefore emotional intelligence is one of the most critical competencies. Understanding and working with other people’s emotions while understanding and managing your own emotional responses requires emotional intelligence.1
4. Decision making is the process or ability to make decisions between multiple actions or directions. An effective leader is able to differentiate between decisions that need immediate action and those that don’t and is able to weigh the positives and negatives that comes with each decision and how those decision will improve care. A leader is able to rely on experience and intelligence to determine which option is suitable for a particular situation.
5. Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas.2 Every leader needs to have the ability to make best decisions in high pressure situations and execute a plan that is effective in reaching the required solution. Good judgement, creativity, and good decision making skills are essential in running an organization and providing good quality care to
One of the most important managerial functions is organizing. This step requires distribution of resources and organizing according to set plans and goals. It requires identifying and delegating authority and providing directions to the team to achieve those set goals.
3. Leading involves communication, motivation, inspiring, and encouraging employees towards a higher level of productivity in achieving quality patient care. Inspiring is an important step in leadership and management and in order for employees to be inspired and believe in the leader, they have to believe and trust what the leader stands for.
4. Controlling function is the useful managerial function that ensures that all functions in a healthcare organization are in place and operating successfully. Level of performance affects all aspects of healthcare and identifying problems that needs to be addressed and the need to create a new set of performance standards that improves patient care is critical.
Today’s healthcare environment is very competitive and in order to survive to survive and have an edge on the competition, the healthcare manager needs to have the following management skills: Problem solving, delegation, excellent