Walking The Talk As Leaders

We begin every leadership meeting at GBMC with a review of our system to remind us of the answer to the question: “How do leaders lead at GBMC?” Without a designed leadership system, we can’t expect to move quickly towards our vision of providing the care we would want for our own loved ones. This system lets every leader know what is expected of him or her.

In this blog, I would like to highlight box 2a in the figure below, Role Model Vision and Values. This box is shaded blue because it contains work that no leader can delegate to others. All leaders must role model our vision and our values. By modeling our vision and values, they are walking the talk and setting the tone for their entire team. I am very grateful to my GBMC colleagues who take this to heart and live our values every day. 

The Leadership System

Recently, I was involved in a conversation with a few of our people who were concerned that some of our leaders stray from these values. They were describing episodes of behavior that did not follow our value of respect.

Everyone has a bad day now and then and all humans are at risk of becoming angry and disrespectful from time to time. But as leaders, we need to continually reflect on our behavior and consciously work to be respectful at all times. We must make it safe for those around us to give us feedback when we are being disrespectful and thank those who are helping us improve. We have to be comfortable with apologizing when we have offended someone. Our system benefits from formal assessments of our leadership from supervisors, peers, and subordinates. When all members of the team review our behavior, we get a clear picture of how we are performing and have the best chance of improving.

Thanks to everyone for making our leadership system come alive and thanks for walking the talk and living our values.