By Nick Richardson
from Revenue Cycle Strategist
Revenue cycle management is a field in which developing relationships among a diverse group of stakeholders and building effective teams is absolutely necessary to be successful. While the basic tenets of revenue cycle management can be applied across many organizations, many healthcare providers hire internal employees to fill key revenue cycle management positions based on the candidate’s loyalty, accreditation, and attention to detail. What many organizations tend not to evaluate when interviewing candidates is the potential manager’s ability and willingness to be an effective leader.
The Servant Leader
In today’s tumultuous healthcare environment, it is becoming more important for organizations to recruit and choose effective leaders and bypass those managers that do not have the stamina and grace to understand the needs of the people they represent, manage, and mentor. Robert K. Greenleaf, in his 1991 book The Servant as Leader, asserts that a servant leader’s mindset is his or her constant concern for those around them and desire to ensure that the “people’s highest priority needs are being served.” Servant leaders accomplish this purpose through initiative and embracing a vision, clearly communicating and knowing how to work with people, and having the foresight and awareness to envision the future.
Thinking outside the box. Servant leaders are willing to risk failure and go beyond societal barriers to create their own vision and provide the structure to accomplish that vision. Servant leaders are able to clearly articulate a vision to their followers, which, in turn, provides purpose and a sense of security in their daily actions to drive toward the vision.
Active listening. To accomplish a clearly articulated and unanimously embraced vision, servant leaders creatively work with willing followers through active listening, language, imagination, and acceptance. By listening to others, servant leaders instill a sense of confidence and trust in others. Throughout their life, servant leaders are always striving to be aware of what those around them may be experiencing and empathize with them.
Communicating a vision. Clearly articulating a dream and serving others to lead them into accomplishing a dream can only be protected by having the intuition to understand what the future will bring. CEOs try to predict where the healthcare industry is moving in order to stay ahead of the competition. The most successful healthcare leaders in all walks of life understand the past and present to intuitively see what lies in the future.
Importance of Developing Servant Leaders
The healthcare industry has many dedicated professionals, but a leadership vacuum is becoming apparent as more experienced executives retire. To sustain the competitiveness of their organizations, revenue cycle leaders must begin mentoring younger supervisors and managers. Servant leaders in the healthcare industry must reinforce the notion to future leaders that being an executive is about serving others by listening, envisioning a better future, and developing effective relationships that benefit patients, employees, healthcare organizations, and the industry.
About the author:
Nick Richardson is a senior manager in Cerner’s Revenue Cycle Services group, Kansas City, Mo. (nrichardson@cerner.com).
This article is from HFMA’s Revenue Cycle Strategist April 2008 newsletter. To access the full content of the newsletter, subscribe today! Revenue Cycle Strategist