Selected Podcast
Transformational Leadership
Ishmel Fulton, LSSB explains what transformational leadership is, the behaviors transformational leaders demonstrate and shares examples of how transformational leadership has helped UCH along its journey to becoming a HERO.
Featuring:
Ishmel Fulton, LSSB
Ishmel Fulton is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with a successful track record for driving operational excellence within healthcare, federal government, manufacturing, and information technology organizations. He is a thought leader with expertise in transformational leadership, continuous improvement, curating organizational culture, and innovation. Ishmel’s accomplishments range from streamlining manufacturing facilities specializing in the production of aerospace components, near infrared (nir) spectrometers, and wet chemistry instruments to innovations in healthcare such as leading the design efforts for the Kroh Center for Digestive Disorders at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and development of the best-in-class patient-centered design of University of Maryland’s Harford Crisis Center. Transcription:
Bill Klaproth (Host): So how do you drive operational excellence, continuous improvement, and transformational leadership within a healthcare organization? Well we’re going to find out with Ishmel Fulton, a performance improvement consultant at UM Upper Chesapeake Health. This is the HERO Podcast from UM Upper Chesapeake Health, I’m Bill Klaproth. Ishmel, let’s start with this, what is transformational leadership?
Ishmel Fulton (Guest): So transformational leadership, it’s pretty much a style of leadership where leaders work with team members to identify needed changes. So what they do is they actually create a division to guide the change through inspiring the folks they’re leading and execute the change in collaboration with those same members of the committed group.
Host: So let’s talk about UM Upper Chesapeake Health, why do you think transformational leadership is necessary to support the journey to becoming a HERO?
Ishmel: Well being that we are on this journey to become a HERO, which is a highly engaged reliable organization, it’s necessary for leaders to be able to tap into that energy, creativity, and also the full potential in themselves and others to go about bringing that transformation that we need to reach our destination.
Host: Alright, well you just mentioned energy and creativity, let’s talk about this, so what behaviors do most transformational leaders demonstrate then?
Ishmel: So there’s typically four key traits, or I would say behaviors that leaders would demonstrate. So you would pretty much see a degree of innovation, influence, implementation, and inspiration, and with those being balanced out in different ways, depending on the leader’s style, those are the things that are going to be needed to actually bring about that creative energy out of folks and in leaders themselves to drive change.
Host: Can you take each one of those four and just quickly give me a little bit more on each one of those? So the first one was innovation.
Ishmel: So when you talk about innovation, you’re going to look at a leader’s ability to actually empower people to be creative and take risk. They particularly serve as a change agent by providing intellectual stimulation and consistently engaging in constructive dialogue and healthy debate that allows their team members or folks they’re collaborating with to generate new ideas, which accelerates innovation.
Host: Okay, and then how about influence?
Ishmel: So influence, you want to look at how a leader is able to be a role model. So if you think about walking the walk, talking the talk, leaders need to actually be able to model the behaviors that they want the team members and the folks that they’re collaborating with to demonstrate it well.
Host: Okay and then implementation?
Ishmel: Well with implementation, that’s a leader’s ability to get stuff done. So with every plan, every initiative, you’re going to come against some type of road blocks. You know the only thing that’s guaranteed when you actually come up with the plan is that it’s liable to change and then time itself or external factors will impact it so that’s the leader’s ability to think critically and navigate whatever barriers that actually come up and have good skills to deal with conflict resolution and still meet their goals, and also push through and inspire folks who are working with them on the initiative to overcome whatever they’re facing at the time. So in essence, the ability to get stuff done no matter what comes up.
Host: And then the last one tell us about inspiration.
Ishmel: Inspiration, this is a leader’s ability to demonstrate the way they articulate a vision, in such a way that it connects to the purpose of not only the organization but driving that back down to the people. Right? So when you have alignment of the organization’s purpose and also an individuals purpose, you actually help them realize their role and they can clearly see what they need to do along the journey. So for our journey to become an HRO – excuse me HERO, we’re looking at ways to align our vision with our individual team member’s purpose so that we can actually move along this journey together and understand what’s in it for the individual as well as the organization and also our patients, and that’s how we readily look at driving change.
Host: Right, so those are really good behaviors that we all should be trying to model, innovation, influence, implementation, and inspiration. So those are the behaviors. So what are then the key components of transformational leadership?
Ishmel: Those types of traits are also considered key components in themselves because what happens is at organizational change, when you have all four of those balanced out. So you’re going to need innovation, influence, implementation and inspiration so if you lack any one of those, you’re going to get different degrees of improvement or varied levels of change or change that actually doesn’t sustain. So for example, if you were to have a leader or an initiative that was pushed with good influence, implementation, and inspiration but it lacked innovation, what you’re going to wind up with is lack of creativity and average performance. Another example is if you actually had innovation, implementation, and inspiration but not influence, the folks involved, they’re going to have a lack of trust and commitment because that leader hasn’t demonstrated that they’re able to walk the talk – excuse me walk the walk and talk the talk and demonstrate those behaviors that others need to see in their leader which they then carry on into themselves.
Host: Okay if any of those are lacking what ultimately happens then if an organization’s leadership is lacking any one of the key components you were talking about?
Ishmel: In essence you’re going to get a different degree of disengagement from the workforce, you’re going to get a lack of sustainability, and you’ll typically see a cycle of popcorn improvements where year after year it bursts of improvements, but then as time goes on, you’ll see that performance goes down again because it’s not sustainable.
Host: So then give us some examples of how transformational leadership has helped UCH along its journey to becoming a HERO.
Ishmel: Sure one great example is the implementation of the daily patient safety briefs. Within the brief it actually allows your organization to maintain a degree of sensitivity to operations. By looking at the keys that impact safety, quality, empathy, and efficiency on a daily basis, allows us to keep the pulse of what’s going on, quickly address any opportunities for improvement, and within that you actually demonstrate and live out those four key traits of transformational leadership, so there’s a degree of innovation when it comes to talking about ideas of how to improve and empowering folks that are leaders both by title and influential leaders across the organization to actually go try things and bring about innovation. There’s also a degree of influence right? Because you’re actually having a room full of folks who are engaging, collaborating, and then sharing to actually walk the walk real time. You also have accountability when it comes to implementation because the barriers or opportunities for improvement that are identified, they’re assigned to specific folks who are leadership roles or who own certain processes to actually address those and come back the next day to act on those solutions, and then finally there’s also a degree of inspiration. Before each brief actually beings, there’s actually a daily reflection by a member of the organization and with that reflection it’s a message of inspiration that helps with making sure we take time out to instill messaging that brings about resilience. It keeps us going.
Host: So if we apply these behaviors you talked about along with these key components, if we apply them to all of the issues and objectives we’re trying to achieve, that’s how we will achieve transformational leadership among the organization.
Ishmel: Correct, over time. You know it’s actually a journey but by consistently demonstrating those four key traits, this is how you actually bring about organizational change.
Host: Well when you break it down like that, it becomes easier to do. Ishmel thank you so much for your time today.
Ishmel: Thank you as well.
Host: And if you want to learn more, please visit umms.org/uch/podcasts. This is the HERO podcast from UM Upper Chesapeake Health, the podcast for internal communications. Check back for our next episode soon and thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth (Host): So how do you drive operational excellence, continuous improvement, and transformational leadership within a healthcare organization? Well we’re going to find out with Ishmel Fulton, a performance improvement consultant at UM Upper Chesapeake Health. This is the HERO Podcast from UM Upper Chesapeake Health, I’m Bill Klaproth. Ishmel, let’s start with this, what is transformational leadership?
Ishmel Fulton (Guest): So transformational leadership, it’s pretty much a style of leadership where leaders work with team members to identify needed changes. So what they do is they actually create a division to guide the change through inspiring the folks they’re leading and execute the change in collaboration with those same members of the committed group.
Host: So let’s talk about UM Upper Chesapeake Health, why do you think transformational leadership is necessary to support the journey to becoming a HERO?
Ishmel: Well being that we are on this journey to become a HERO, which is a highly engaged reliable organization, it’s necessary for leaders to be able to tap into that energy, creativity, and also the full potential in themselves and others to go about bringing that transformation that we need to reach our destination.
Host: Alright, well you just mentioned energy and creativity, let’s talk about this, so what behaviors do most transformational leaders demonstrate then?
Ishmel: So there’s typically four key traits, or I would say behaviors that leaders would demonstrate. So you would pretty much see a degree of innovation, influence, implementation, and inspiration, and with those being balanced out in different ways, depending on the leader’s style, those are the things that are going to be needed to actually bring about that creative energy out of folks and in leaders themselves to drive change.
Host: Can you take each one of those four and just quickly give me a little bit more on each one of those? So the first one was innovation.
Ishmel: So when you talk about innovation, you’re going to look at a leader’s ability to actually empower people to be creative and take risk. They particularly serve as a change agent by providing intellectual stimulation and consistently engaging in constructive dialogue and healthy debate that allows their team members or folks they’re collaborating with to generate new ideas, which accelerates innovation.
Host: Okay, and then how about influence?
Ishmel: So influence, you want to look at how a leader is able to be a role model. So if you think about walking the walk, talking the talk, leaders need to actually be able to model the behaviors that they want the team members and the folks that they’re collaborating with to demonstrate it well.
Host: Okay and then implementation?
Ishmel: Well with implementation, that’s a leader’s ability to get stuff done. So with every plan, every initiative, you’re going to come against some type of road blocks. You know the only thing that’s guaranteed when you actually come up with the plan is that it’s liable to change and then time itself or external factors will impact it so that’s the leader’s ability to think critically and navigate whatever barriers that actually come up and have good skills to deal with conflict resolution and still meet their goals, and also push through and inspire folks who are working with them on the initiative to overcome whatever they’re facing at the time. So in essence, the ability to get stuff done no matter what comes up.
Host: And then the last one tell us about inspiration.
Ishmel: Inspiration, this is a leader’s ability to demonstrate the way they articulate a vision, in such a way that it connects to the purpose of not only the organization but driving that back down to the people. Right? So when you have alignment of the organization’s purpose and also an individuals purpose, you actually help them realize their role and they can clearly see what they need to do along the journey. So for our journey to become an HRO – excuse me HERO, we’re looking at ways to align our vision with our individual team member’s purpose so that we can actually move along this journey together and understand what’s in it for the individual as well as the organization and also our patients, and that’s how we readily look at driving change.
Host: Right, so those are really good behaviors that we all should be trying to model, innovation, influence, implementation, and inspiration. So those are the behaviors. So what are then the key components of transformational leadership?
Ishmel: Those types of traits are also considered key components in themselves because what happens is at organizational change, when you have all four of those balanced out. So you’re going to need innovation, influence, implementation and inspiration so if you lack any one of those, you’re going to get different degrees of improvement or varied levels of change or change that actually doesn’t sustain. So for example, if you were to have a leader or an initiative that was pushed with good influence, implementation, and inspiration but it lacked innovation, what you’re going to wind up with is lack of creativity and average performance. Another example is if you actually had innovation, implementation, and inspiration but not influence, the folks involved, they’re going to have a lack of trust and commitment because that leader hasn’t demonstrated that they’re able to walk the talk – excuse me walk the walk and talk the talk and demonstrate those behaviors that others need to see in their leader which they then carry on into themselves.
Host: Okay if any of those are lacking what ultimately happens then if an organization’s leadership is lacking any one of the key components you were talking about?
Ishmel: In essence you’re going to get a different degree of disengagement from the workforce, you’re going to get a lack of sustainability, and you’ll typically see a cycle of popcorn improvements where year after year it bursts of improvements, but then as time goes on, you’ll see that performance goes down again because it’s not sustainable.
Host: So then give us some examples of how transformational leadership has helped UCH along its journey to becoming a HERO.
Ishmel: Sure one great example is the implementation of the daily patient safety briefs. Within the brief it actually allows your organization to maintain a degree of sensitivity to operations. By looking at the keys that impact safety, quality, empathy, and efficiency on a daily basis, allows us to keep the pulse of what’s going on, quickly address any opportunities for improvement, and within that you actually demonstrate and live out those four key traits of transformational leadership, so there’s a degree of innovation when it comes to talking about ideas of how to improve and empowering folks that are leaders both by title and influential leaders across the organization to actually go try things and bring about innovation. There’s also a degree of influence right? Because you’re actually having a room full of folks who are engaging, collaborating, and then sharing to actually walk the walk real time. You also have accountability when it comes to implementation because the barriers or opportunities for improvement that are identified, they’re assigned to specific folks who are leadership roles or who own certain processes to actually address those and come back the next day to act on those solutions, and then finally there’s also a degree of inspiration. Before each brief actually beings, there’s actually a daily reflection by a member of the organization and with that reflection it’s a message of inspiration that helps with making sure we take time out to instill messaging that brings about resilience. It keeps us going.
Host: So if we apply these behaviors you talked about along with these key components, if we apply them to all of the issues and objectives we’re trying to achieve, that’s how we will achieve transformational leadership among the organization.
Ishmel: Correct, over time. You know it’s actually a journey but by consistently demonstrating those four key traits, this is how you actually bring about organizational change.
Host: Well when you break it down like that, it becomes easier to do. Ishmel thank you so much for your time today.
Ishmel: Thank you as well.
Host: And if you want to learn more, please visit umms.org/uch/podcasts. This is the HERO podcast from UM Upper Chesapeake Health, the podcast for internal communications. Check back for our next episode soon and thanks for listening.