by Judson Bobo
Health care professionals from NGOs across North Carolina recently gathered for a weekend of leadership training in Fayetteville, NC. This meeting comprised the second of a series of leadership development sessions resulting from the collaboration of the Center for Creative Leadership’s (CCL) Leadership Beyond Boundaries initiative and the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust (KBR). The aim of this training is to give public health care officials across the state the skills they need to become better leaders in their respective work places, and to enhance cooperation and teamwork among this group as a whole. The more effective these professionals become at leading their individual organizations, the more effective they are at maximizing the effectiveness and impact of limited resources. The better they learn to communicate and work together, the better able they are to guide North Carolina toward a brighter future for those who need, but cannot afford, health care.
Joel Wright and Lynn Fick-Cooper acted as facilitators during the weekend and presented the Leadership Essentials® workbook to the 24 participants, who were selected by KBR. According to the participant feedback gathered at the end of the weekend, the material introduced new skills that were highly applicable to North Carolina’s health care industry. The participants appreciated the simplicity of the presentation while commenting on the depth of awareness it facilitated and the utility of the leadership tools. One participant’s comment describes the breadth of learning he received:
“We [learned] a lot of basic information on leading: how to go about leading, how to engage people, how to work collaboratively to pool our resources instead of fighting over a smaller pot of resources, how to expand our whole notion, our mental model, [concerning maximization of] resources. How to get people to tap into their passion, how to [motivate] people to follow a vision that is bigger than just the bottom line.”
- LE participant
Another participant reflects on the big picture, on the long-term effects of the collaboration between CCL and KBR – how it affects North Carolina’s financially needy on a large scale:
“While it is an indirect investment, it is a very significant one, a very critical one that ultimately serves the clients that we serve. I want to thank the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust for the opportunity to attend this training.”
- LE participant
The basic leadership skills that KBR is helping spread among regional health care NGOs is having a positive impact on this industry. By making leadership development widespread and affordable, society, as a whole, benefits. With success stories in Africa, India, and most recently the United States, Leadership Essentials® really is changing the world, one leader at a time.
4 comments:
Paying attention individually to NGO professionals, healthcare in particular, is taking care of society's essential, frontline services. We depend on their commitment to us in times of great personal fragility, yet often ask them to sustain themselves in hearts and minds (and funding). Social pecking order and its benefits tilts towards supporting attractors with chache, status,and power. Quieter, foundational elements of sustaining healthy lives and communities might seem to be the responsibility of taxes, volunteers,and professionals with a calling to their roles. Basics of civilzation (healthcare, education, safety, energy supply, transportation systems, financial systems, rule of law...)in a first world nation will always be there, fully estabished and understood as such, won't they? Exposed neglect, inertia, even corruption, shocks us when we experience events like Katrina or international finacial meltdown. They reveal corosive inattention, poor anticipation and preparation -- inadequate leadership. We are better than that as a people, aren't we? Leadership programs like the one described in Steadman's blog are lifeblood for keeping the hearts and minds of frontline dedicated professionals renewed, invigorated, expanded, and strengthened. Shifts in attention are natural as is urgency and its pocketbook. It isn't enough to rally when crisis shakes us into a new appreciation of solid function of social order. It takes steady regard for the development of leaders and their networks whose shoulders bear our hopes for care and a chance to thrive. It calls on clarity and integrity from each of us in how we expect that to happen.
P.S. Thank you to Judson Bobo for his fine article which inspired my comment.
Beth, thanks for this encouraging comment here at Leadbeyond.org. We really appreciate your thoughtful words and look forward to working with you more closely in the future! Steadman
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