Guest post by Michelle Rathman, president and CEO of Impact! Communications Inc., a healthcare strategy company specializing in rural healthcare organizational culture transformation, communications, leadership development and community engagement.
There's no question that the best healthcare leaders are great communicators. By definition, they have mastered the important functions of management such as establishing a vision, goal setting, motivating, planning and organizing. These skills have one common denominator: effective communication.
Whether you're in a rural hospital, clinic or critical access hospital, as a leader you must know how to communicate your values clearly and solidly. What you say reinforces the values, goals and mission of your hospital or system and helps you build teams that respect you and follow your example. For your healthcare organization to reach new, better levels of communication, you must learn the basics of effective communications and consistently model these in all situations and interactions.
As I've seen in working with rural hospitals throughout the Midwest, meetings are a prime example of where leaders often fall short as strong communicators. Too few leaders end meetings with the all-important "closer"--a shared agreement and understanding about what needs to be communicated out and how. To be effective, you should adjourn meetings by identifying the top three group takeaways, salient talking points, timing of communicating with other staff and the medium to be used for sharing.
Where do you begin?
First, acknowledge that communications are a two-way street. While you can articulate clearly, you have to make sure you're being heard and understood.
Read the full commentary at Hospital Impact