Emily Gruenwoldt Carkner is one of the authors of “Emerging health leaders’ experience: Reflections and lessons learned from a grassroots network” appearing in the May edition of Healthcare Management Forum dedicated to emerging health leadership. The abstract for her article can be found here:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1016/j.hcmf.2010.12.001
Q: The emerging health leaders’ network was originally created 10 years ago to support the professional development needs of new leaders. What originally set this network apart from existing resources, such as mentorship programs and peer events?
A: What set Emerging Health Leaders apart ten years ago remains what sets it apart today – it is a network inspired by and for emerging leaders.
Often, emerging leaders are directed toward professional development opportunities by employers seeking to develop competencies relative to corporate strategy or to fill internal skills gaps. While this training is crucial to success on the job, it does not address personal leadership competencies or establish peer networks to position emerging leaders for success over the course of their career. This has become the focus of EHL.
Mentorship and coaching remain critically important elements of professional development for emerging leaders. Responding to member demand, several EHL nodes have established creative approaches to mentorship and coaching, leveraging local senior leaders and coaches.
What EHL has recognized over time is that there is no one size fits all approach to leadership development. Unlike traditional, very structured organizations, EHL nodes have the flexibility to be responsive to their members’ needs and the ability to develop custom programming.
Q: You mention in your article that growing the network wasn’t targeted as a formal objective, but that it instead grew more organically. Can you describe how this happened?
A: Emerging Health Leaders was literally born around the kitchen table of my co-founder, Adrienne Hagen Lyster. We identified common gaps in professional development and set out to identify solutions locally (Ottawa).
EHL resonated almost immediately with young and aspiring leaders in Ottawa, and as a result, very shortly thereafter, we were asked to present our initiative at two national conferences. At both events, Adrienne and I were approached following our presentation by emerging leaders just like us who perceived a gap in available offerings, and were interested in developing an EHL presence in their jurisdiction. Without this local champion, our concern was that the node would risk volunteer fatigue quickly and/or would be in jeopardy of never getting off the ground.
Vancouver was the second node to launch, and they remain one of the most active nodes, ten years later. Today, there are eight nodes across the country representing emerging leaders in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax.
Each node exists to serve the same needs (to develop emerging leaders and enhance the leadership capacity of the health system), but each take a unique approach to program delivery and administration. Each node leverages local volunteer leadership and takes care to ensure that their offerings are meaningful and relevant to their unique audience.
Q: Membership in the network must also have changed as people’s careers mature. How has the network adapted to the needs of its members today and the demands of the healthcare sector?
A: Membership of Emerging Health Leaders is quite fluid. There is no formal criteria to become a member (for example, age, employer, or years of experience) – the goal is to serve an audience who is looking to establish themselves in the health sector (grow their network) and develop fundamental leadership skills. The majority of members are within the first five to eight years of their career, but there have also been members who have joined mid-career who are new to the health industry. The network has limited resources (both financially but also with respect to a volunteer workforce) and has made a strategic decision NOT to meet the leadership development needs across a career life cycle. Instead, we have identified our niche and focused on delivering value to this segment.
Q: The survey you discuss in the spring of 2016 indicated that employers are doing more to support the professional development needs of their employees, such as through on-line training. Do you see a future in which the network will no longer be needed?
A: I think there will always be value in connecting like-minded, aspiring leaders in a local context. While some organizations are financially able to deliver leadership/professional development on site, their priorities are often different from those of the emerging leaders themselves. Putting emerging leaders in the driver’s seat means that they are able to identify their own training needs which will position them for success in the long term.
Q: How can the readers of your article use what you’ve learned in their own environments?
A: Perhaps the biggest opportunity is to consider how you communicate with and engage your emerging leaders with respect to their own career development. Often professional development is a conversation that happens once a year around the time of performance assessment. As a senior leader, be thoughtful about how you might facilitate the participation of emerging leaders in day to day operations of your organization (committees they might attend, special projects they could be seconded to, stakeholders they might benefit from meeting). Ask your emerging health leaders what experiences they think might benefit them. Set them loose – trust them to identify a gap in your organization and let them think about potential solutions. Leadership development doesn’t need to be costly and it doesn’t need to be formal to be effective.
A secondary benefit? A highly engaged (and fiercely loyal) employee you are proud to have affiliated with your organization.
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