New Leadership for Healthcare

 

Harry L. Mills, Ph.D.

 

 

Managing services to seniors is not the same as managing a widget factory even if advocates of the generic-all-purpose-managers who can manage anything at all would claim otherwise. Healthcare organizations are part businesses but that is not the whole story. The lives of people are at stake in organizations delivering healthcare services. Making a profit is less impressive when dead people or ruined lives are a byproduct. Quality must be programmed into the service systems. It is not a product of committee meetings or those notebooks loved by auditors. Quality is a moral imperative in healthcare. Thus it requires a new kind of leader.

 

The New Knowledge

 

Leaders in healthcare can depend on knowledge that has accumulated and been tested repeatedly since World War II. In WWII the fate of the world depended on the development of management techniques and methods of quality control that were certain to work. Among those who stepped up to the plate was a man with a doctorate in mathematical physics named W. Edwards Deming. During World War II our soldiers were brave, but so too were the soldiers of our enemies. It was our industrial might that beat the Nazis and Japanese. Rafael Aguayo points out in his book The Metaknowledge Advantage, that industrial success in WWII was the first confirmation of the new approach to management based on the revolutions in science that took place in the first half of the century. New knowledge based on new science.

 

The second substantiation of the new knowledge came after WWII when General Douglas Macarthur was struggling to help lift Japan from its ashes. At the time the term ‘Made in Japan’ was synonymous with very poor quality. Macarthur remembered the miraculous transformation of American industry during the war and invited people such as Deming to Japan to work with industry leaders. The Japanese embraced the techniques wholeheartedly because they believed that it was the might of American industry that defeated them. The recovery of Japan and its transformation into an industrial power that would become dominant over the US in industry after industry, from cars to televisions, was the second testimony to the new knowledge.

 

By the 1980s American industry could no longer rest on its laurels, as it was able to do just after WWII. Competition in the marketplace led to the rediscovery of Deming and the proponents of the new knowledge and the new approach to leadership. Companies as diverse as Harley Davidson, Ford and Motorola began to apply these methods to regain their share of markets by producing better products. By the 1990s even skeptics like Jack Welch of GE were applying the proven methods under a new name, Six Sigma. Same information with a new name. The successes of companies like Ford and GE were the third proof of the new knowledge which provides the foundation for the new leadership.

 

The new leader can turn to knowledge that builds on the foundation of the scientific transformations of the first half of the 20^th century. However, to succeed it must be built on three commitments:

 

1. Insisting on an intense focus on the patient and development of ways to bring the voice of the patients into the health organization.
2. Insisting on an intense focus on the methods (a.k.a. processes) that produce high quality services to patients.
3. Insisting on a continuous effort to innovate and further improve the way services are delivered.

 

With these key commitments and a continuing effort to develop and grow in the ten areas introduced in this program, you can begin to build your leadership on a solid foundation.

 

 

The New Leadership

 

Bookshelves are filled with texts on how to become a better leader. Some books suggest imitating leaders from the distant past, including such figures as Attila the Hun and Robert E. Lee. While one may glean snippets of knowledge from such sources, the modern workplace is very different from the plains of Mongolia or the hills of Gettysburg. Modern workers are highly educated, tuned into the world through CNN and capable of voting against a bad boss with their feet. Modern organizations are very complex and the production of products and services requires increasing levels of technical knowledge. Above all there has been an explosion of information and the world is now connected, and made one community, by electronic marvels like the internet. Waving swords and battle flags is more likely to lead to arrest than to success.

 

Leading healthcare professionals, who are called knowledge workers because we need what is their head more than we need their muscles, is a little like herding cats. Healthcare professionals expect communication and prefer participation. Even the modern Marine Corps requires a much more sophisticated form of leadership than a shouting drill instructor. It is doubtful that Attila the Hun or Robert E. Lee would be a great leader in any modern company. To succeed they would require all of these:

 

1.                  The ability to think of organizations as systems.

2.                  The ability to understand that real events exhibit high levels of variability.

3.                  An understanding that change is constant and that no organization can stand still without going backwards.

4.                  The ability to build and manage teams that have a laser-like focus.

5.                  The ability to be a performance manager and coach for individuals and for teams.

6.                  The capacity to formulate a vision for the future of the organization (or team).

7.                  The ability to analyze trends, solve problems and make appropriate decisions.

8.                  The continuing refinement of emotional competency.

9.                  The ability to communicate to superiors, peers and followers.

10.              Continually building  resilience to adversity and thus the ability to bounce back from disappointment.

 

For the new leader, pursuit of excellence, in these ten areas, must be a continuing effort. The goal is mastery, so as each new skill is developed there will always be a higher level to which the leader can strive.

 

In no area is this more important than in healthcare. There has been a trend since the 80s to  turn healthcare into a commodity and to sell life and death like beads in a bazaar.

 

 

Systems Thinking

 

Ask about an organization and you may be handed an organizational chart with boxes in neat little columns and rows. While most people know, intuitively, that a page of boxes does not conform to workplace reality, few are aware of the degree to which such notions damage managerial effectiveness. Hierarchies of boxes promote silo thinking and that is the opposite of systems thinking. Departments can, and often do, become silos (those tall, thin windowless structures that are great for storage of grain). Organizational silos in healthcare promote terrible patterns of organizational behavior and declines in the quality of care. Windowless walls tend to retard essential communication and inhibit cooperation. Each silo, or department, tends to optimize itself, often at the expense of the organization as a whole. Leaders in such organizations spend much of their time passing information from silo to silo and resolving the conflicts that must arise from silo thinking. Too little time is spent ensuring that work processes are being done in a way that impact patients positively. Such organizations tend to place customer satisfaction way down on the priority list, because they are too busy with fights between silo managers and playing games that are a product of poor communication and limited cooperation.

 

While discussions of systems often drift into lofty abstractions, it is actually a very practical concept. Peter Sholtes, a disciple of quality guru W. Edwards Deming, says these are characteristics of a system:

 

1.         A system is a whole composed of many parts. He suggests a car as a concrete example of a system.

2.         Each unit, or part, of the system has a different purpose in relation to the overall purpose of that car providing transportation.

3.         Each unit or part contributes to the overall purpose, but no part can do so by itself. You can’t drive the brakes to the airport, but just try driving to the airport without brakes.

4.         The parts are dependent on one another, or interdependent, in fulfilling the goal of transportation. You will not get where you need to go without an accelerator pedal. but it must be connected to the fuel injection system

5.         To understand a unit, or part, you must understand how it is dependent on other parts and how it fits into the whole system (e.g. to provide transportation).

6.         To understand why the system works you must look to the larger systems of which it is a part. Having a steering wheel on the right will work in some countries but not others.

7.         To understand the system you must understand the purpose, its interactions and its interdependencies. Spreading the parts out on the floor tells you very little.

 

Any organization is a system with social and technical components. There are interdependent parts (e.g. departments, divisions, teams, individuals) each of which has interests and purposes which should, but do not always, contribute to the primary goals of the organization. The new leader must look at the system as a whole, understand the importance of interdependencies and ensure all parts contribute to the whole.

 

 

Variability and Process Control

 

Is the temperature in the room where you sit with your computer always exactly the same? Does it always take the same amount of time to drive to work? Does the sun rise and set at the same time each day? There is variation, right? That is the way the world is, and yet leaders often pretend the business world is not that way. The delusion that it is a black and white world and that any single number (e.g. last quarter profits) represents reality is a source of a great deal of foolishness. Too many leaders try to manage in the 21^st century with 18^th century thinking. The new leader must not do so.

 

Leaders who disregard variability are much like B.F. Skinner’s pigeon in the famous Skinner box. When pellets of food were presented at random, the pigeons foolishly linked the food with various body movements. If their heads were rocking when the pellet appeared, they rocked their heads. If they were turning around they turned around. These movements had nothing to do with the food. However, the world is full of leaders who are dancing around like pigeons. They are operating in a world of superstition.

 

When a leader fails to understand variation, or fails to even acknowledge its existence, these kinds of mistakes are made:

 

• Seeing trends when there are actually no trends
• Missing trends when there are real trends
• Leaping to blaming individuals or groups of individuals who had no real influence
• Giving credit to individuals or groups who were simply lucky
• Launching disruptive programs for improvement when no improvement is needed
• Failing to identify areas for improvement when improvement is needed

 

The leader who fails to recognize the importance of variation is likely to leap to conclusions from too little data. Can you predict the temperature of your room three hours and twenty minutes from now, based on one measure, such as the temperature right now? Can you specify to the second, or even the minute, how long your drive to work will take tomorrow based on the time it took this morning? Unlikely. Can you predict what next quarter’s profit will be based on the last quarter? No. You cannot interpret such numbers without understanding variation. One number by itself is never enough.

 

The new leader must place as much emphasis on the statistics of variation as on the profit and loss statement. In any business there are key processes which determine whether customers will pay for the product or service, and the new leader must be a wise student of those processes. The new leader cannot afford to become a superstitious pigeon. If the business requires a telephone response, and the length of time required for an answer determines customer satisfaction, then the leader must understand those processes well  in order to determine if, and when, those processes require change. The new leader cannot know when changes need to be made without understanding variation. Superstition costs money.

 

 

Leading Change

 

The new leader knows that tomorrow will not be like yesterday. Change is a constant fact of life. The new leader seeks to work with the forces of change. The surfer seeks to ride the waves and not to stop them. A leader in the global economy must be a change surfer. The old leader mutters platitudes like “people don’t like change” when faced with the fact that up to 75% of corporate change programs do not yield desired results. To find out why most change programs fail, the leader should look in the mirror.

 

Actually life, by its nature, is about adapting to change. Of all the species on earth, humans are the most adaptable. People don’t like being changed, but they find change, when properly managed, exciting and exhilarating. The key is leadership.

 

When there is resistance to change, it is because change is viewed as having risks. Actually not changing may carry more risks, but we tend to get comfortable when things stay the same. Often the old leadership shoves all the risks to subordinates while taking few, if any, themselves. The new leader is willing to absorb risk and help employees appraise their own risks. In fact, the new leader realizes that if you are not risking your job, you are not doing your job. Followers will risk more when the leader is already willing to do the same. The new leader is a risk taker. You cannot steal second base with your foot still on first.

 

 

John P. Kotter in his excellent book, Leading Changes, identifies an eight stage process for creating major change:

 

1.         Establishing a sense of urgency – the new leader must define the market reality that compels change, and do so with clarity

2.         Creating the guiding coalition – putting together the groups that have the power and know how to bring about the changes

3.         Developing a vision and a strategy – the vision must be shared and must be clear enough, in defining the end product

4.         Communicating the change vision  - the new leader keeps the desired ends in front of people

5.         Empowering broad-based action – there will be obstacles and those obstacles must be systematically removed

6.         Generating short-term wins – the new leader defines shorter term milestones on the way to the goal, each of which can be celebrated.

7.         Consolidating gains and producing more change – other systems, structures and policies that no longer fit must be changed also

8.         Anchoring new approaches in the culture – the new changes must be tied to the values and patterns of the culture to be sure the changes endure

 

Leading change is one of the biggest challenges for the new leader. Improving skills in planning and leading change is a continuing process. It is best to begin now.

 

 

Building and Managing Teams

 

Teams work. That fact, and the flexibility required for organizations to adapt to the constant changes of the global market place, are reasons why the new leader must develop skills in creating and managing teams. The rigid old organizational structures are being replaced with more fluid designs that can better serve customer needs. Teams will do more of the work that used to be done through the hierarchy. However, teams are only as good as the leadership. The good news is that teams can reduce costs and provide better solutions. The bad news is that teams can be a real challenge for leadership. Teams can be useful in these ways:

 

• To save time and costs by cutting through layers of hierarchy
• To integrate the work of people with different competencies and points of view
• To arrive at more innovative solutions through the synergy of diversity
• To generate high levels of involvement by giving a group of people with a clear focus, authority, responsibility and accountability
• To free leadership to focus on the customer

 

What is a team? In general, a team is a group of individuals with a common purpose. The common purpose of a professional football team is to win games. However, teams in the workplace are groups of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a specific outcome. A team may suggest improvements in the way a product is created or a service delivered. If properly selected, from different parts of the organization, a team can bring a unique perspective to problems that would not be possible from inside the hierarchy.

 

Because of increasing pressures for high levels of performance, organizations use teams to bring multiple perspectives to a problem, or program, a set of customers or an important work process. With creative leadership there may be an unlimited number of purposes for the use of teams. Susan Mohrman and Allan Mohrman in Designing and Leading Team-Based Organizations suggest these five types of teams:

 

1.         Work teams – which perform the core work of the organization. They employ resources (e.g. labor and raw materials) to produce the products or services of the organizations

2.         Integrated teams - which coordinate and integrate the work of different parts of the organization to add value to products or services

3.         Management team – which makes authoritative decisions about strategy, priorities, services, allocations and organization for a business unit

4.         Involvement teams – which perform tasks that were once the domain of management such as Six Sigma performance teams.

5.         Improvement teams – which plan and introduce changes that improve the quality of products or services.

 

When properly managed teams can be a major asset. When poorly managed, as is often the case, they can be counterproductive. The new leader will face the challenge.

 

 

Performance Management and Coaching

 

Far too often leaders conclude that the employee is the problem and the leader must train, transfer, threaten, discipline or replace them. Assuming that defective people are the root of all performance problems is as illogical as assuming that bad batteries are the root of all automobile malfunctions. There may be need for changes by the employee. The problem may very well be the battery. But good leaders, and good mechanics, realize that batteries and employees are part of a system. If the mechanic is only interested in assigning blame, then blaming the battery is easy. If, on the other hand, the goal is to fix the car, the mechanic had best conduct a more careful assessment. The goal of the new leaders should be to fix performance and to succeed performance must be carefully analyzed.

 

Geary Rummler and Alan Brache in Improving Performance point out these elements must be involved in any analysis of performance, if change, rather than blame is the goal:

 

1.                  Performance specification

2.                  Task support

3.                  Consequences

4.                  Feedback

5.                  Skills/knowledge

6.                  Individual capacity

 

To clarify we should look at each stage in the analysis a little more closely.

 

The first phase of analysis addresses the question of whether performance standards exist and if so, are they clear? If they are clearly stated, does the employee understand them? If the standards are vague or if the employee does not understand them, the review might very well end there. The solution may be clarification and not elimination.

 

The second area of analysis requires a review of the flow of resources. Did the material arrive on time? If there are problems upstream those problems should be addressed. Leaders must explore whether there was sufficient support for performance.

 

The third area of analysis is to examine the consequences of performance. What happens if employees do things right? What consequences are wired in to support positive performance? It is essential for the new leader to examine the timeliness of feedback about employee performance. Feedback on performance should be frequent, relevant, accurate, specific and understandable.

 

Whenever there is a performance problem the new leader must ask if the employee has the knowledge and skills needed to perform the tasks in question. If not, coaching or training may be the right solution

 

Finally, does the person have the individual capacity physically, mentally and emotionally to perform. Even good people have performance problems under great stress. The new leader does not leap to blaming, rather, they solve problems.

 

Vision, Inspiration and Motivation

 

A vision is a doable dream, or a simple, easy to comprehend and possible goal toward which you would like your business to work. Visions are important to the extent that they channel motivational energy. A vision of a feast is likely to energize a starving man. A vision trigger is a statement, slogan or picture that reminds people of the ultimate goal. But the energy to achieve the goal comes from the match between the inner striving of those led and the vision and not from the vision itself. Going away for a weekend with a consultant to write a vision statement is likely to be a waste of time and money. Energizing visions must arise between the leader and those who are led.

 

The primary purpose of a vision is to keep the goal in mind. But to be transforming a vision must be appropriate to the organization and its time. It must be consistent with the values, culture and history of the organization. There must be a match. The vision of a personal computer on each desk did not thrive at IBM. Good vision. Bad match.

 

A good vision should be uplifting. It should set standards of excellence and reflect high ideals. A vision can be about what is possible even when it is not highly probable. The vision should clarify purpose and direction. It should define what the organization wants to make happen and define legitimate aspirations for people in the organization.

A vision should inspire enthusiasm and commitment. Done properly a vision can recruit diverse followers for the leader. The vision should be well articulated and readily understood. It will not inspire if it is not understood.

 

Even a well articulated vision will not energize an organization unless the new leader waves the flag regularly and thus ensures that the mission, goals and objectives for the organization serve the vision. The alignment of energies does not automatically follow. The leader should use the vision like the sailor uses the North Star. The sailor must constantly review their direction and their progress in relationship to the star. The leader should track progress in relation to the vision.

 

The popular press has created a myth that successful companies begin with a vision and are headed by charismatic visionaries. Not true. Successful visions often evolve even when they are not defined at the outset. James Collins and Jerry Powers of Stanford University Graduate School of Business have studied successful organizations, and they find that this is not the case. Their examples are interesting. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, who created Hewlett-Packard, did not have the slightest notion of where they were going when they started the company. Masaru Ibuka, who built Sony, started out with bean paste and miniature golf equipment. Sam Walton started out with a Ben Franklin franchise and later told the New York Times, “I had no vision of the scope of what I would start.” J. Willard Marriott just wanted to be in business for himself, but he had no idea what that business might be.

 

Business success requires the evolution of a vision, though it may not be perfectly clear at the outset.

 

 

Analysis, Problem Solving & Decision Making

 

The first job of a leader is to make decisions. To fail to make decisions is to abdicate leadership. There is no simple formula for decision making. Leaders face making decisions in a pressure-packed environment of inadequate input, conflicting recommendations, scarce resources, and budget constraints that limit options.

 

How can the new leader be thorough and methodical in analysis and problem solving, without falling into analysis paralysis? President Kennedy had an advisor from Harvard who droned on and on saying, “On the on hand…on the other hand… or on the other hand.” JFK stopped him and said, “Please pick a hand.” When the advisor looked at him quizzically JFK simply said, “Now is the time for you to pick a hand.”

 

Paul Hersey, Ken Blanchard and Dewey Johnson in Management in Organizational Behavior point out that there is no one decisional style that fits all circumstances. The new leader does not get locked into a single style, no matter how comfortable that style may be. There are four major approaches:

 

• Authoritative
• Facilitative
• Consultative
• Delegative

 

Authoritative decision making applies in situations in which the leader has information and experience to make a decision, makes the decision and then and announces that decision to subordinates. In crisis situations and in situations in which subordinates have little to offer, this is an appropriate style.

 

Consultative decision making also involves the leader making the final call but only after knowledgeable and willing followers offer their input. When others can increase the likelihood of a good decision, the leader is a fool not to ask. However, the leader should make it very clear that she will make the final decision and may not follow the advice given.

 

Facilitative decision making is a cooperative effort in which the leader and the followers reach a shared decision. In this case the leader actually shares authority so it is very important that those followers have both knowledge and the positive motivation to help make the best decision.

 

Delegative decision making is used when followers have the knowledge and experience to make a decision and then recommend a course of action to the leader. The leader throws the ball to others, and stands back to let them make the shot to the basket. The new leader realizes that, with the educated staff found in the modern workplace, one style does not work. The new leader is flexible.

 

Emotional Competency

 

Leadership is as much about the heart as the head. It is emotions that energize followers and motivate them. It is passion that inspires. Followers often match their emotions to the emotion of the leader. It is much like the two tuning forks in high school science. Tap one to get it vibrating and place it near another. Shortly the second will vibrate at the same frequency. The new leader must recognize that emotional resonance is part of effective leadership. Passion recruits passion. Joy recruits joy. Anger may very well recruit anger. A leader who is unable or unwilling to exhibit emotion will be short of followers.

 

The new leader must be emotionally intelligent. The concept of emotional intelligence was popularized by Daniel Golman based on the pioneering work of Peter Salovey at Yale. Emotions play a role in orchestrating our responses to events. Fear leads to running away from danger which can be a very intelligent thing to do. Anger leads to social or even physical aggression that can be very valuable for survival. Emotions help organize our reactions and, in fact, work in full partnership with thinking. Effective leaders appeal to both the head and the heart.

 

Salovey believes that emotions actually help us prioritize, by directing attention to options that have higher survival value. Happiness can actually facilitate reasoning and creativity. Changes in mood can signal a need to review what is happening around us. Emotions help us remember and can help us in making judgments. In short, according to Salovey, the notion that thinking is good and feelings are bad is pure nonsense. We need both.

 

The emotionally intelligent leader is able to recognize and properly identify emotional states in themselves and in others. Those who cannot recognize emotional states in others are very likely to make big mistakes in judgment about people and motivation.

 

The ability to manage emotion in oneself, by moderating negative emotions and enhancing positive ones, is essential to effective leadership. Leaders who cannot control the experience and expression of anger are condemned to be significantly less effective. Emotionally intelligent leaders can regulate their negative emotions.

 

Emotional intelligent leaders are capable of empathy. They can appreciate what other people are feeling and identify with those feelings. They can use that understanding to develop strategies for influencing that person in the service of the organization. A lack of empathy renders the leader much less effective. Empathy helps the leader make better judgments.

 

Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyaters and Annie McKee have applied the concept of emotional intelligence in a book entitled Primal Leadership. They say that the emotional task of the leader is primal, or first, and is “…the most important act of leadership.” They make a persuasive argument that, throughout history, leadership is effective because it was emotionally compelling. The new leader recognizes this.

 

 

Effective Communication

 

The best way for the new leader to improve skill in communication is to be quiet. Shut up. Then listen. As Stephen Covey has suggested in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People seek first to understand, and only then, to be understood. If the new leader can do only one thing, listening is certainly likely to have the most immediate impact. While a good beginning, it will not be enough because there is a communication revolution under way, and the new leader must ride the wave of that revolution. The global economy makes new demands for better communication.

 

After becoming a better listener, the next most important thing to understand about communication is that we do not know whether we have succeeded until we find out what the person or persons, to whom we sent the message, actually received and understood. A presentation, whether before a group, by phone or by email cannot be judged successful until we probe to determine how our message is being received. The new leader cannot stop to do formal studies after each communication; however, they can do spot checks. This alone makes them more sensitive to the audience and to the fact that, if the message was not received, there was no communication. It is the audience or receiver who determines success is communication, and not the sender.

 

In the past the leader could learn writing, reading, speaking and listening skills and be satisfied with their skills. With the advent of the internet and new telecommunication options, the new leader has to develop more specialized skills like researching on the net, writing an email, and reading from a computer screen. They must add these new skills to other basic skills such as speaking in public and listening on the phone. In the future, with technological improvements in video, the new leader will have to make the best use of electronic conferencing. However, none of these will eliminate the need for writing clearly, reading quickly for comprehension or speaking to groups of various sizes.

 

The new leader seeks to continually improve their writing skills. While there are similarities, writing a memo to be distributed on paper is not the same as writing an email. While both require attention to spelling and grammar, an email must be brief while a memo can contain greater elaboration within the basic document. An email is also considered to be less formal than a memo. Improvement in presentation skills is also imperative. Talking to three people in your office will tap different skills than presenting to a thousand stock holders. But both sets of skills can be essential for effectiveness.

 

The worst method of communication for leaders is “guess what I am thinking.” Mind reading is not a skill that should be expected in employees. Some leaders justify their mistakes in communication by saying they like to play it ‘close-to-their chest’ or they use a ‘need-to-know’ criteria. No matter what the rationalization may be, the inability or unwillingness to communicate renders such leaders far less effective.

 

The new leader must become a great communicator.

 

 

Resiliency and Optimism

 

Martin Seligman, the author of Learned Optimism, and psychologist at Penn, made a study of the elections for president in the United States since 1948. Do voters tend to vote for optimists? In his lab they created a way to score the campaign presentations of the candidates and develop a score. The higher the score the more pessimistic the candidate. The lower the more optimistic. In every election from 1948 to 1984, except one, the more optimistic candidate won. The only exception was the Nixon-Humphrey race which followed the disastrous convention in Chicago. In the 1988 election they rated the candidates, before the primaries, and then stored their predictions until the conventions. Optimism predicted the outcome in every race. People prefer fellow optimists. Optimists give hope, and hope is powerful.

 

The new leader must build the kind of resilience that seems a product of optimism. The good news is that research by Dr. Seligman, and others, about optimism suggests we inoculate ourselves against adversity in a variety of ways. Success is based on the way we explain the world around us to ourselves and others. We can learn how to do that better and thus increase our ability to bounce back.

 

Resilience refers to how well a leader can respond to stress. How much resistance does the person have to being overwhelmed by stress? There is a dimension called hardiness that has been studied extensively. Research on leaders in a wide variety of organizations and found that hardiness was based on three characteristics:

 

• Control
• Commitment
• Challenge

 

The leaders least likely to be overwhelmed by adversity have a belief that they have a significant measure of control over events in their work life. The key was the belief and not necessarily the reality. Even when they would prefer to have more influence over events the hardiest leaders believed in their capacity to control. Hardy leaders were committed to their work and their workplace. They tended to consistently reassert that commitment in the face of disappointments. Leaders who can bounce back see negative events in the workplace as a challenge. Barriers are seen as challenges that must be overcome.

 

Paul Stoltz, author of Adversity Quotient, points out that those who bounce back are better able to limit the adversity and do not let it spread to other areas of their work or home life. They also see the adversity as  limited and not enduring. They quarantine the stress and prevent it from spreading. The new leader continues to work on their ability to manage stress and adversity. They learn to convert the negative events into positive energy for performance. New leaders must continually build their resilience to stress.