Healthcare Executive - November/December 2013 - 79

CEO Focus

must encourage every employee to
think outside the box, and innovation
must be embraced and rewarded at
every level in the organization.
4. System Performance
Improvement Rigor
Jeffcoat is a proponent of setting
goals and then using dashboards and
metrics to guide the work and deliver.
At Saint Alphonsus, Jeffcoat says they
have trained more than 1,000
employees in Lean management principles, deployed project management
throughout the system and put a lot
of energy into improving quality and
reducing waste through performance
improvement projects.
“I’m a big believer in project management. It’s kind of a love/hate relationship actually, because it requires
great attention to detail, clarity on
metrics of success and a leadership
team who embraces this level of
rigor, which can be a pain, but it
does really drive organization success,” Jeffcoat says.
5. Leadership Development Succession
Part of delivering a successful future
to your organization is setting up
potential candidates to continue the
organization’s strategic vision after
you’ve gone, Jeffcoat says. She says
she believes her role as a CEO
includes delivering a succession pool
and developing future leaders.
Saint Alphonsus has 220 top leaders
and identified 10 percent of those
people to have leadership development plans. It has also started a physician leadership academy to
enhance clinical integration and
encourage physician leadership and
governance.

6. Movement to a Community of Leaders
Jeffcoat says effective leadership is
all about the team, and a community of leaders is more important
than ever.
“The complexity and the pace at
which we have to manage in this
environment is really high,” she says.
“We have to lead our teams in ways
that go from individual silos to a
collection of team members that can
deliver the future that we envision.”
Jeffcoat says leaders are not good leaders if they are so ego driven that they
are always standing in front of the
team and taking the credit. The most
empowering way to lead, she says, is to
inspire people so they become able to
realize their own potential.
A team that functions as a community of leaders differs from a highperforming team in that it innately
knows when it needs to focus, selfcorrects and doesn’t see itself as leaders of certain functions, but of the
organization as a whole. The team
shares an innate passion for the
organization’s vision, yet each team
member appreciates the diversity of
the other team members and relies
on the others for mutual mentorship, rather than exclusively depending on the CEO.
“A matrix organization is our reality,” Jeffcoat says. “And so it’s a team
actually thrives on interdependence
and gets excited about our ability to
connect the dots and to be successful together as we integrate and
serve together.” s

THE

be prepared
Chances are your next CEO
search will include a Gen X
candidate. Different values and
a lifetime of tech savvy make
these candidates unique.
Understand what
motivates them
Recognize the
misconceptions
Discover how they
can help you

Visit msasearch.com/genxceo
to learn more!

Marisa J. Paulson is assistant content
editor with Healthcare Executive.
Healthcare Executive
nOv/DEC 2013

Healthcare Executive - November/December 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Healthcare Executive - November/December 2013