Two must-have skills for Lean healthcare leaders

Being a successful leader takes a variety of innate skill sets and characteristics, ranging from the ability to get up after being knocked down to dealing with and engaging people. That said, depending on their position, business leaders might need a more specific set of traits as well. For example, financial officers must be well suited to dealing with numbers all day, while human resources managers need to have strong interpersonal skills.

The same can be said about people who are leading Lean healthcare changes within hospitals and private practices. Many physicians are looking to expedite visit times without sacrificing efficiency or productivity, and because of Lean's ability to accomplish this goal in the manufacturing sector, it is now being applied to healthcare.

That said, there are two particular traits that Lean healthcare leaders need to possess to ensure they are effective at driving a meaningful implementation of Kaizen throughout the workplace.

1. Brutal honesty

The ability to hold nothing as sacred is pivotal to implementing Lean healthcare. Medical practices tend to be rooted in old habits, as evidenced by the sluggish transition to electronic health records and other advances. Lean healthcare leaders need to be able to work through these established practices, root out the bad ones and enhance others where necessary.

“Organizations need to be open about their shortcomings, too,” Healthcare Finance News suggests. “In a lot of management cultures, the key to success is hiding or deflecting that. A good Lean leader is going to push the organization to be more transparent. Once problems are visible then, and only then, can you dig in and fix whatever needs fixing.”

2. Relationship-building skills

Lean healthcare is as much about the people as it is the practices. A Kaizen work culture is one that starts from the bottom up by incorporating the feedback and insight of every employee who works at a company. For healthcare organizations, that means everyone from the primary physician to secretaries and assistants.

Lean healthcare leaders take the role of being facilitators or mentors, rather than people who give employees directions.  It is absolutely vital that they are able to communicate openly with their workers, as they will be dealing with them as equals and partners. A lack of relationship-building skills may undermine Lean implementation straight off the bat.