Welcome to Module 3 of the Cardiovascular Program Coordinator course. This module is focused on leadership. The content is provided by Suzanne Inglis. In this module, we will review the following learning objectives to find leadership, recognize and adapt to different leadership styles, define personal leadership style, and design a plan to hold stakeholders accountable in the accreditation process. Now that you have assumed the coordinator role, you will find that developing your leadership skills will add efficiency and success to your new role. It is not uncommon that our coordinators are assuming their first role as a leader. By the end of this module, you will have a better idea of the skills necessary for success. We will discuss leadership and leadership styles, as well as team accountability. As the leader, you will need to hold those members of your chest pain center committee accountable for completing delegated tasks. You, as the leader, are not expected to complete the accreditation process by yourself. Your committee members must bring their expertise to the process. Some have difficulty asking others for help when in the leadership role. The information in this module will define the delegation process and the overall success of the process when all contribute. What is the role of the leader? Initially, it is to inspire the committee by sharing the vision of full accreditation. You can describe the benefits of accreditation in that your facility will be providing evidence-based, high-quality, and cost-effective care to your acute coronary syndrome patients. Explain that each person at the table contributes to this overall vision and will contribute in a unique way. Early on, let the team know that you will be assigning tasks to be completed and that a timeline will be attached and expected to be followed. Explain the accreditation process, the number of documents to be submitted, and the need for their individual expertise to assure up-to-date and correct information. One of the early tasks in the accreditation process is completing the gap analysis in the tool. Share the analysis with your team to identify where the work is needed and who might be best suited to review, revise, or create new policies and procedures to meet the essential components in the tool. With every accreditation process, there will always be gaps that need to be addressed. You can begin making assignments once the gap analysis is completed. When doing so, give specific direction, help the team member set priorities, and meet deadlines. Emphasize that you are defining current reality, and by completing the accreditation process, the team and the facility will arrive at the future state of excellent care for the acute coronary syndrome patient. Let the team know that this process is to improve current reality and to create a sense of process improvement throughout the facility. The accreditation process is not about achieving perfection. The process is about continuously improving. Now that you have shared a compelling vision with the team, you must sustain the enthusiasm for that vision. The accreditation process will take approximately 10 to 12 months and consistent energy is required to reach successful completion. Expectancy theorists teach that when you expect hard work, it will lead to good results. In turn, the good results lead to rewards. In this case, successful accreditation. As mentioned earlier, the leader is not responsible for doing all the work. Your role is to delegate responsibility to the team members and then hold them accountable for completing the assignment. Linking their work to the vision keeps the team on track and makes their work more meaningful. The work to achieve accreditation is often not easy. Keeping the vision clear for your team members will help them in those times. As the leader, it is important to choose people for the team who have the necessary skills to do the job and achieve the vision. That may not always be as easy as it might seem. There are some in roles who may be a novice to that role. That person may be on a learning curve, and you as the leader must recognize that and provide additional direction to that person. As a leader, it will be important for you to give feedback regularly. People need to know if they are meeting expectations. Giving feedback may be a challenge for you if you have not been in a position where you have had to give feedback. Getting praise for a job well done is the fun part. The challenge is when you have an underperformer who is not meeting deadlines, who is not attending the required meetings, or who has not provided the requested information. You need to keep in mind that giving constructive feedback is helping the person to become successful. If you shy away from giving honest feedback, they lose and so do you as a leader for the project. In summary, understand that your role is to inspire, set the vision, motivate the team to stay on course, give feedback, and always celebrate the team's successes. As the leader, it is important to identify your own leadership style as well as the styles of those on your team. A challenge for the coordinator is that you have a large multidisciplinary team that has senior leadership, physicians, directors, managers, EMS leadership, perhaps leadership from another facility, and frontline staff. Your ability to communicate with all levels of team participants is crucial to your success. We will review a few leadership styles in this module. Try to identify some of these styles as you get to know your team and participants. The first is the democratic leader. This type of leader builds consensus through participation by the team. The leader asks frequently for opinions from the team and supports open discussions to finally reach consensus. This type of leadership certainly makes the team feel connected and heard. The downfall may be that it takes more time to facilitate with this style. With the accreditation process, you have limited time to complete tasks and reach completion. This style of leadership may also be frustrating to the physicians and senior leadership as they usually have very busy schedules and like to see decisions made quickly and move on. The other members of the team, though, may need to have individual input to feel a part of the process and feel that their opinions matter. You might consider having smaller ad hoc meetings with an appointed leader to garner input from others, especially the frontline staff. The appointed leader can then keep you informed and bring the ad hoc committee decisions to the larger group. You as the overall leader must be committed to keeping things moving while at the same time honoring all members' input. On the other end of the leadership style spectrum is the autocratic leader. This type of leader has tight control on decisions and takes very little input from others. The autocrat tends to follow his or her own beliefs and does not include others. The autocrat will assign tasks and responsibilities to others with little direction but will expect perfection in the delivery. Usually no recognition is given for a job well done. The autocratic style limits creativity and sharing of crucial information. When the accreditation goal is based on evidence, there is little room for personal opinions about content. Also, once the evidence is presented in a policy or procedure, you will need input as to how to best share the new practices in your facility. That process takes conversation and opinions. As the coordinator, you may have an informal autocratic leadership on your team. If that occurs, it is best to meet with that person individually and not disagree openly during your meeting. If the person is a particularly difficult person, this may be the time to ask for assistance from your chest pain medical director or a senior leader. Don't back off from confronting the issue but use your resources to assist. The charismatic leader is one who usually has an outward and pleasant personality and can motivate others by their mere presence. I am sure you have met this type of leader in your career. People tend to want to please this type of leader and will put forth their best effort. This style of leader can determine the strengths and weaknesses of a group and assign responsibilities that match those tendencies. Natural born leader comes to mind for this style of leader. Delegated leaders approach their committee management in an organized and business-like manner. Roles and responsibilities are outlined succinctly and assigned with timelines attached. This type of leader is usually a no-nonsense type of leader with the outcome of the vision always in the forefront. This style leader can get things done and is usually successful in achieving the stated goal. Delegated leaders have no problem delegating the duties and responsibilities. They can articulate the strengths of the team members and allows them to move forward with little direction or input. The delegated leader knows when to step in if needed. Usually the need is to keep the team cohesive as each member is busy with their assignment. The delegated leader needs to be updated at intervals but has a stable confidence in the team. This style of leadership often works best when the team is small, the team is seasoned in the elements of the stated goal, the team is familiar with the leader and knows his or her expectation and knows when to reach out for help. What is your leadership style? Take this leadership assessment and see where your strengths and weaknesses might be. Tabulate your score. Leadership can be hard to define and it can mean different things to different people. Leaders set direction and help themselves and others to do the right thing to move forward. To do this, they create an inspiring vision and then motivate and inspire others to reach that vision. They also manage delivery of the vision, either directly or indirectly, and build and coach their teams to make them even stronger. Effective leadership is about all of this and it's exciting to be part of this journey. The five C's of accountability. Leadership in purpose, clear expectations, communication and alignment, collaboration, and consequences. Set the stage for any team initiative by talking about the why. Why are they here? Why are they working on this project? Connect what you need the team to do and why you need them to spend the valuable time doing it. What's the point? Why does it matter? The sign of a high-performing team is the ability to rally around a common purpose. Clarify the expectations of the team and individuals at the first meeting. Define how you would like for them to deliver on their assignments. You can ask for them ahead of the next scheduled meeting for your review or have them bring the deliverables to the next meeting. Set the schedule for the meetings and deliver at the first meeting. Follow up with an email invitation to each meeting. At least set up meetings for the next 10 months. Set up a metric for what success looks like when the goal is achieved. For accreditation, you might set up that the tool and the accreditation performance database will be completed one month before the submission date. As time passes, as part of leadership development, it's a leader's job to keep the team focused and aligned so that everyone's involved and moving in the same direction. Keep everyone focused. Over and over communicate with the team. Ask questions and remind them how important their work is. You might consider a weekly blast email to the team with words of encouragement and praise. Communication and alignment is what provides life to any team because it's what fosters longer-term sustainability. Set the stage for collaboration along the way so that adjustments can be made in real time. If a team member is having difficulty meeting deadlines or does not understand the assignment, meet one-on-one with that person. Coach them to become successful. Try not to do the work. Show the team member how to do the work. If what you have tasked your team to do is important, then it deserves your time and support. Make results and consequences visible. Talk to your team strategically rather than tactically, which is usually done through questions instead of statements. Secondly, for some reason, leaders are the first to let people know when something's not right or it has gone awry. But when things go well, it's almost as if the success is glossed over. The consequence of that, though, is that you help create a remedial culture. Work to give equal weight to the consequences as well as the successes. All of these steps will help you hit your target. No matter how efficient and masterful you are at your job, you have the same amount of hours in the day as your colleagues. There are only so many tasks you can achieve within the same time frame. So to free yourself up and lighten the load, you must depend on your team. It goes without saying that the people who are best at their work are often given more work. And this can often lead to a sense of pressure and a feeling of being out of control. There is a light at the end of the tunnel if you seek it. There are many reasons why people don't delegate. You may believe you don't have time to train someone. You may fear losing control. You believe that you can do it better. These reasons are valid, but unless you find the way through them, you cannot possibly achieve a successful outcome. The first step is acceptance. Trust that your team, with your coaching and support, will produce a quality contribution to the overall task at hand. Take the time to explain to your team member why they were chosen for the task and be clear in your expectations of them. To find when the task needs to be completed. And always offer your availability throughout the process. In delegating effectively, we have to give the team enough room to use their abilities for the best possible outcome, while still staying close enough to ensure that the work is done correctly. Once the work is delivered back to you, be sure to spend the time to give honest feedback. By not giving honest feedback, you are impeding your team member's ability to learn and grow. Be open and direct while being sensitive to the fact that this work could be new to them. When creating your agenda for your cardiac program committee meetings, place celebration of successes on the agenda. Call out those who have completed their assignments and reached approval status. Your team members will appreciate being recognized. Celebrating those successes can also motivate those who may not be where they should be with their work. One tool that you may find helpful during your accreditation process is a Gantt chart. The chart provides a visual view of the tasks that need to be completed and when they should be completed. Update the Gantt chart for each meeting. You might also consider sending it out on a weekly basis to the team so they can be reminded of the dates and deadlines. The benefits of using a Gantt chart are many. Most importantly, it is a visual reminder of progress. Additionally, it can help with time management for the leader as well as the entire team. And thirdly, it serves as an accountability tool. You have been provided with a website that will further explain the use of the Gantt chart and also how to create the chart. In summary, you have been chosen to lead a very important project. If this is your first leadership experience, then I hope that the suggestions made in this leadership module will serve you well. As an experienced leader, I hope that you have learned something new. This concludes Module 3 of the Cardiovascular Care Coordinator course.

Module 3

Cardiovascular Program Coordinator

leadership

Suzanne Inglis

learning objectives