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You are here: Home > IHI Offerings > IHI Open School > School Resources > Tools > Activity: What makes a good health care leader?

Activity: What makes a good health care leader?

What makes a good health care leader?  What skills do you need to lead an improvement project in the real world?  And how are you supposed to go about getting those skills?
 
If you want advice on leadership, ask a great leader.  This activity can be done at the individual or group level. 
 
What you can do
Invite a local health care leader to attend a Chapter meeting. Do you know someone in the quality or patient safety office at a nearby hospital? This is a great place to start, but here are some other ideas to try:
  • Ask faculty to help you identify a manager in the local health care organization of a unit or area with exemplary safety or satisfaction results
     
  • Identify an admired faculty person, from your school or another school on your campus, who is known for succeeding in making changes (to curriculum, clinical care processes, organizational structures, etc.)
  • Identify a leader in a local not-for-profit that is doing work that inspires you
  • Other students serving in leadership positions in other campus organization
  • The leader of the patient or parent advisory board at the local health care organization
 
What the leader can do
Ask the leader to share an experience from his or her early days in the health care profession.  There may also be students or others in your Chapter who have led other organizations.
 
Discussion Group Questions
  1. Tell us about some results that you have achieved in quality and safety.
  2. What changes had to happen in order for these results to be achieved?
  3. How did you evolve into the role you have now? How did you learn the things you think you need to know to be a leader that gets results?
  4. What are the most important characteristics of a leader?
  5. What barriers have you faced as a leader?  How did you overcome them?
  6. Do you have any tips regarding communication styles?
  7. What advice would you give us? How can we position ourselves to lead other students or health
    care professionals in an effective way?
  8. What does “leading from the bottom up” mean to you?
  9. What does the leadership structure look like in your organization?
10. How do we, as students, fit into the hospital “organizational
     chart”?
 

first last

  • On Call: Leading from the Bottom Up
    Sure, you want to improve the quality of health care. But you’re just a student – who’s going to listen to you?
  • Trustworthy Leadership: Can We Be the Leaders We Need Our Students to Become?
    This essay was originally delivered by Diana Chapman Walsh, former president of Wellesley College. In this essay, Walsh argues that we need "our graduates to become active participants in the world, potent advocates for human rights, confident leaders willing to take risks in pursuit of intellectual honesty, of freedom to disagree, of justice and fairness, global citizenship and mutual responsibility."
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