Healthcare executives have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. Whether it’s making determinations about organizational structure or directing strategy, all top-down decisions can have significant consequences. However, perhaps the most impactful role that these executives play is setting the tone and culture of the facilities under their stewardship.
A healthy company culture can be justifiably considered the backbone of an organization’s success. The healthcare field carries unique challenges, such as heavy emotional labor on the part of staff, a generally high-stakes and high-pressure environment, rapid developments in technology resulting in frequent changes to workflows, long working hours, and regulatory requirements. It’s within this context that healthcare executives must establish their organizational culture, and for the most effective leaders, it’s at the core of their agenda.
Culture: The Hidden Engine of Healthcare Organizations
Organizational culture has an impact in nearly all areas of a hospital or health center’s operations and success. It’s also an example of an area where leading by example can be impactful; leaders’ conduct can help guide company norms and attitudes, as well as give clarity on the organization’s vision and values. Company culture also intersects strongly with an organization’s mission, which, in the healthcare context, means putting high-quality care for patients front and center.
A healthy company culture, in which transparency and open communications are highly valued, can also have a significant impact on staff turnover and morale. Studies have consistently shown that a healthy culture can have positive effects on both employee performance and the effectiveness of healthcare delivery. Through leading by example, healthy organizational culture can have a cascading, top-down effect in which leadership attitudes impact front-line performance.
Culture Starts from the Top
At first glance, it may seem that HR departments are the most important for shaping company culture. While it’s true that HR does play a role in fostering transparency and cultivating an environment that allows employee concerns to see the light of day without repercussions, healthcare executives have more overall sway and responsibility when it comes to setting tone and culture of the facility under their leadership. On a fundamental level, this often means fostering organizational values, such as accountability, transparency, and empathy.
These improvements in culture can have a measurable impact on treatment outcomes for patients as well. This mixed-methods intervention study, for example, found that improvements in culture reduced patients’ mortality from acute myocardial infarction (heart attack).
Building Culture Through Safe Communication
Communication is perhaps the most important component of company culture; poor communication can irreparably damage it, and healthy, open communication allows it to thrive. Communication between leadership and regular employees is important, but so is communication across various departments. Cross-department communication allows them to support one another; understand workflows, limitations, and current commitments; and develop a greater sense of collaboration and teamwork.
A number of strategies can be used in order to facilitate regular, healthy communication through the organization, such as staff feedback loops, regular ‘town hall’ style meetings, and a culture of ‘no-blame’ incident reporting. A culture of transparent communication, in which issues are addressed in a manner that first and foremost seeks solutions versus culprits, can go a long way in empowering staff members to speak up, innovate, and learn from mistakes when things go wrong.
Building a Culture of Innovation: Adopting Technology with Purpose
Another characteristic of a strong organizational culture, especially in the dynamic environment of a healthcare center or hospital, is a willingness to experiment and innovate with new techniques, tools, and technologies. In fact, a healthy culture is an important prerequisite that enables successful adoption of the latest medical innovations in the first place. Organizations that foster a collaborative, learning mindset are in a better position to innovate and adapt the latest advancements, such as robotics, AI-enabled diagnostics, and advanced ultrasound devices.
While resistance to change can be a powerful force in an organization, a company culture that encourages innovation and curiosity can overcome this hurdle, as well as other possible challenges, such as training difficulties and siloed thinking.
Sustaining Culture Through Change and Crisis
Challenges and changes, such as regulatory upheavals, financial downturns, and global pandemics, are inevitable in the management of healthcare organizations and hospitals, and these changes, particularly major ones, can have a lasting effect on organizational culture. Sometimes these changes are for the better, but without strong, steady leadership, a crisis can have a damaging effect on organizational culture.
A robust company culture can serve as an important anchor for a healthcare system or hospital during times of crisis. During such moments, team members, patients, and other stakeholders can be thrown into uncertainty and see their confidence shaken. However, healthcare executives can play a critical role in reinforcing culture during times of transition and change by further emphasizing organizational core values, communicating clearly to all stakeholders and team members, and maintaining a consistent leadership presence.
A Call to Cultural Stewardship
The right culture can make or break the success of healthcare organizations and hospitals and fostering a robust, positive culture is the most important role for healthcare leadership to take on. Healthcare executives are in a key position to actively shape and protect their organization’s culture. In the world of healthcare, many leaders can get overwhelmed by the multi-faceted challenges of the role, but when leadership is lost in the minutiae, culture suffers.
Maintenance of organizational culture can sometimes be dismissed as ‘soft’, but in fact, it’s one of the most strategically important roles of healthcare executive leadership. It provides a basis and foundation that every other aspect of the organization rests on.
As healthcare leaders rise to meet the challenge of directing the culture of their organizations, a couple of questions about culture can help guide them:
- What kind of culture am I building in my organization today?
- Will this culture carry my organization forward in the future?
If leaders are not actively shaping their organization’s culture, then it’s going to be shaped without them. The most important role in healthcare leadership isn’t simply to direct, but to deliberately and intentionally build a culture that drives lasting impact.
Patient satisfaction builds reputations.