The Value of Trust for Healthcare Leaders

The Value of Trust for Healthcare Leaders

By Erik Cazares MSN, RN

Healthcare leaders at all levels within their organizations are facing unprecedented challenges in their journeys to improve the patient experience of care, improve the health of populations and simultaneously decrease healthcare costs. The demands on healthcare organizations are now so intricate and complex that they require high functioning leadership teams to keep up with the pace. High performing organizations with efficient leadership teams appear to have one common factor propelling their success; high levels of trust.

Stephen M. R. Covey makes a compelling point for the benefits of high trusting organizations in his book The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. He notes that organizations that have high levels of trust are able to perform much faster and efficiently, ultimately yielding greater "dividends" through enhanced innovation, improved collaboration, partnering, execution and heightened loyalty. On the other hand, those that have low levels of trust are "taxed" through redundancy, bureaucracy, politics, disengagement, turnover, churn, and fraud. Covey describes the foundation for establishing high trust through credibility. According to Covey, credibility is developed through 4 core characteristics; (1) integrity (2) intent (3) capabilities and (4) results. These core characteristics in turn will drive character and competence. If one is missing, then credibility will not exist, and trust will be diminished (Covey, 2006).

Trust, however, is not a naturally occurring characteristic in organizations. It is a trait that organizations must foster and nourish not only in their leaders, but with the rest of their employees as well. As role models in organizations, leaders have a responsibility to serve as the catalysts for inspiring trust. Current and future leaders must develop a special awareness to the trust levels that exist in their organizations and should be deliberate in their leadership efforts to foster and drive a culture of high trust; with character and competence serving as fundamental building blocks for success.

 

References

Covey , S. M.R. (2006). The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. New York, NY: Free Press