Leadership development is a top priority for organizations across all industries. Healthcare is no exception. In fact, HR Dive reports that 84% of healthcare organizations prioritize leadership development despite tough market conditions. In fact, 99% plan to either maintain or increase their leadership development spending.
Chances are your organization is among them. But what are you doing to ensure that your investment pays off in terms of improved leadership skills and better management across your organization?
The Role of Accountability in Leadership Development
When you select or approve a member’s participation in training, does that approval come with some expectation of demonstrated results? It should.
Accountability is a powerful tool that can dramatically increase the likelihood of achieving leadership goals. But if your team members go off to training with no such expectations, what’s the likelihood that you’ll reap the rewards of your investment?
Slim.
You can boost the odds of success by building accountability into your leadership development efforts. Here’s how.
Implementing Accountability in Leadership Development
- Ask participants to set clear, written goals. When we write down our goals, we’re 42% more likely to achieve them. Make sure that leadership development participants—including yourself—take the time to clearly articulate development goals in writing.
- Establish accountability partners. Don’t just go it alone when it comes to leadership development. Teaming up with someone you can trust to help you stay committed to help you make better progress toward your goals. Regular check-ins can ensure that both team members stay on track.
- Create a common language. Having a common language across your organization using language from your standards helps to reinforce learning and create a culture of continuous improvement.
- Tell stories! Take advantage of every opportunity to tell a story that illustrates an important leadership lesson put into practice. Stories have to be told or they die. Sharing stories of leadership successes and challenges can reinforce learning and inspire others.
- Reflect and course correct. As we take steps to apply what we’ve learned, we may discover that we need to make some course corrections to have the desired impact. That’s okay. In fact, that’s good! Continually ask yourself, and encourage your direct reports to do the same: “Am I heading in the right direction?” “How can I get back on the right path?”
These steps aren’t just empty promises. Our work with organizations has shown that they can have a measurable impact.
A Case in Point
We worked with a multi-specialty medical practice to implement accountability measures for their leadership development program. Based on these efforts, we demonstrated a dramatic decrease in turnover from 38% to 18%, a 20% increase in patient experience scores, and anecdotal reports of increased employee engagement. (Their pulse survey is scheduled next month.)
HR Dive also points to a return on investment (ROI) of 7:1 for every dollar spent on leadership development.
Ensuring accountability for leadership development efforts can have far-reaching effects. By consistently applying and reinforcing the leadership skills your employees are developing through your training investments, you’ll help to set a standard for all to aspire to.
By leveraging the power of accountability, you can transform learning into action to create lasting change not just for your leaders—but for those they lead and the patients they serve.
Ready to build a leadership culture of accountability? We can help.
Tags: Accountability, accountability measures, employee relations, ensuring accountability, healthcare leadership, leadership development
