Tough Times Call for Strong Leaders: PHI Launches 18-Month Program for CHCA Managers

According to a recent study by the Center for Creative Leadership, the business environment is more complex and challenging than ever before, and, as a result, businesses need to rethink how they prepare the next generation of leaders. Businesses in long-term care are certainly no exception to the trend toward greater complexity and challenge. What does this mean for how they prepare their emerging leaders?

Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) has answered this question by partnering with PHI to develop an 18-month leadership development program for its middle managers.

“It”s a volatile and uncertain time for the industry,” explains Adria Powell, CHCA Executive Vice President. “We want CHCA to continue to thrive in this new environment, and for that to happen, we need our managers to do more than manage. We need them to lead.”

The program is unfolding over an 18-month period that will end in December 2015. The core components of this program are:

• An assessment of needs: This included interviews with senior leaders and a self-assessment questionnaire for the managers.
• Monthly seminars: These seminars are customized in response to the assessment of needs. Topics have included motivating staff to “do more with less,” managing reactive emotions in oneself and others, learning to simultaneously focus on both task completion and relationship building, and learning the skill of “interest-based” negotiation.
• Individualized coaching: Each manager has worked one-on-one with a PHI coach to identify a personal leadership development goal.

A mid-course evaluation with the managers indicates that they are benefiting from the program. In particular, some participants have developed more self-awareness about themselves as leaders. “This program has helped me clarify my personal vision and values as a leader,” said Crystal Harris, Director of Patient Services.

The program has also provided managers with the opportunity to learn core principles of leadership and practice new skills. “This program has helped me become a strong leader,” reports Training Manager Elizabeth Collet. “Now I can embrace what in the past I would have kind of put off addressing, hoping it would fix itself and disappear. I am so much more confident now.”

— by Renya Larson, PHI Organizational Change Consultant