By Darlene Christiansen, RN, MBA, EdD(c)
Vice President of Synergy Enhancement
Ethical leadership in healthcare requires teamwork and partnering with the patient, family, organization staff, care providers, and the community to develop ongoing improvement strategies and build systems and processes that support the mission of the organization. Ethical leaders embrace people-building and development strategies, providing guidance and support to their staff while upholding the company’s expectations of employee performance. These leaders have the ability to listen receptively to what others have to say and they have commitment to building community in the workplace.
The patient, as healthcare partner, is the healthcare provider’s customer. Two important elements of successful customer strategies are leadership engagement and ownership of the customer experience. Relationship management by engaged leadership is critical to the organization’s success. To ensure success, leadership must develop and implement appropriate organizational ethical decision-making systems and processes to provide guidance to staff. These systems and processes, developed with staff input, assist staff in advocating for the patient, supporting patient autonomy, and achieving patient-centered care. Patient-centered care requires healthcare providers to elicit the patient’s point of view bringing to light personal values, care preferences, and psychosocial factors that impact health. Patient advocacy requires a relationship-centered approach to healthcare. The philosophical premise of this approach is that the relationship among practitioners, patients, healthcare organizations, and their communities are the primary drivers of health. This mutual understanding between healthcare provider and patient then informs decision-making and patient-appropriate autonomy. Engagement of patients and families in the planning of care empowers patients to participate in care decisions, provide self-care, and protect themselves from potential harm. Instilling ethical patient-centered care systems not only addresses development and implementation of organization processes but must also address the potential need to change organizational culture.
In Aristotle’s words in which he addressed the significance of cultivating habits and practices within individuals, he stated “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act but a habit.” Proper planning is an integral component of ethical leadership. If you fail to plan then you plan to fail. Achieving excellence in healthcare, therefore, must be planned and developed to become integrated into habits. As ethical leaders we must serve as a responsible role model, as well as develop other role models, both at the organization and community levels and create an inclusive community resulting in shared decision-making systems and processes.