Healthcare leaders are busy. That doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone, especially healthcare leaders. Healthcare is an industry that has experienced significantly high levels of burnout historically. But burnout has been especially pervasive—and debilitating—since the pandemic.
The NIH notes that healthcare workers “seem to be at particular risk for burnout.” According to a 2022 CDC study, “46% of health workers reported feeling burned out often or very often, which is an increase from 32% in 2018.” It’s clear that healthcare leaders and, let’s face it, virtually everyone working in healthcare, are experiencing extremely high levels of burnout.
But why are they burning out?
Factors pointed to by HHS include “excessive workloads, administrative burdens, limited say in scheduling, and lack of organizational support.”
The Impact of Delegation (or Lack Thereof…) on Burnout
Another factor that I’ve observed as I coach and counsel healthcare leaders is their failure to delegate—or to delegate effectively. Workloads in healthcare are challenging enough without taking on the added burden of work that could be done by others.
There are so many positive aspects to delegation—not just for busy healthcare leaders who have way too much on their plates, but also to their employees who can learn, grow, and develop through effective delegation. Spreading the work around to other capable individuals who may have more capacity than they do is also a great opportunity to groom, mentor, and coach them.
If you can delegate successfully over a period of time, playing to people’s strengths, you’re actually helping to build their toolboxes and giving them a wider breadth and depth of skills.
Failure to let go, though, can have a negative impact not only on staff members, but on leaders themselves—and, of course, the organizations they work for.
Impact of Not Letting Go
When leaders fail to delegate effectively there can be three key impacts:
- Increased stress, which leads to burnout.
- When leaders can’t focus on their own primary managerial tasks because they’re picking up elements of others’ jobs.
- Lost opportunities to develop staff members, and the risk that they may become disengaged and at risk for turnover.
Delegation is a crucial leadership skill that not only helps lighten your burden but grows the people you delegate to. But don’t just dump jobs and walk away. Make sure to use these opportunities to help coach and mentor your subordinates for success. Make it a win/win.
In our next post we’ll take a look at some of the common reasons behind why leaders don’t delegate.
Tags: coaching, Communication, Employee Engagement, employee relations, Healthcare Leader, healthcare leadership, Leadership, leadership practices
