Written by: David M Zechman BSE, MPA, LFACHE, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Are you excited to lead with eight compassionate values that will motivate your successful servant leadership journey? I hope that you agree that a leader who emphasizes a compassionate servant leadership culture and style will likely create a more productive and enjoyable place to work, both for those you lead and for yourself.
Below is a sampling of results from a hospital that fully supported a servant leadership culture. Over a five-year span, patients that rated the hospital a 10 on a scale of 1-10 improved from the 44th percentile to the 64th percentile compared to 1600 hospitals. Those recommending the hospital went from the 51st percentile to the 62 percentile. The hospital also received numerous national quality designations including being a 5 star Medicare hospital, Top 50 Heart Hospital honors, and achieving Magnet Nursing designation only achieved by approximately 7% of all hospitals nationwide.
In addition, the organization achieved positive operating margins, which is a strong achievement considering the financial challenges for hospitals to maintain positive operating margins today. Employee turnover remained consistently low, while there were positive gains in employee engagement.
To be clear, these achievements were the result of the hard work of physicians and employees dedicated to service and excellence, which serves as the bedrock foundation of the organization’s culture. However, unless the leadership team did not fully embrace the eight values of Successful Servant Leadership starting with the President and CEO to the supervisors, it is doubtful these results would not have been achieved. It is a leadership culture they fully believed in and followed.
Finally, I did a survey of everyone I interviewed for my recent book, “Driven by Compassion – 8 Values For Successful Servant Leaders,” asking them to rank the 8 values in order of importance with one being most important and ten being the least important. Below are the rankings with the raw mean score:
Walk The Talk - 2.91
Communication - 3.0
Honesty and Integrity- 3.14
Servant Leadership - 3.25
Trustful- 4.35
Commitment - 4.79
Patience- 6.15
Grudgeless - 6.89
Do these results surprise you? Do you agree that it is clear that the leaders from supervisors to CEO’s rank walking the talk, communication.
Honesty and Integrity, and servant leadership are most important? How would you rank the 8 values related to your servant leadership journey?Take the survey now as your baseline and repeat in one year after implementation.
I would love the opportunity to join you and/or your organization in a compassionate, servant leadership journey. This can be done through a keynote presentation, workshops, or my book.
Whatever you decide, I hope that this article as well as previous articles I have submitted to Brainz Magazine this past year motivated you to embrace this style of leadership. You will never regret it!
David M Zechman BSE, MPA, LFACHE, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
David Zechman is currently a published author writing "Driven by Compassion ‒ 8 Values For Successful Servant Leaders" which is based on real life experiences of interviewed leaders from CEO's to supervisors. Zechman is also an accomplished public speaker, executive coach, leadership consultant, college professor, an active member of two boards, and CEO of Mergestone Group which acquires and manages assisted living and home health agencies. Zechman spent 39 years in healthcare until he retired as a hospital President and CEO.." Zechman is also an accomplished public speaker, leadership development consultant, CEO of Mergestone Group a published author, writing "Driven By Compassion ‒ 8 Values
