Comments on: “Always” Leadership

By: Tony Muniz

Tony Muniz — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:41:55 +0000

Sadly, even great leaders can suffer from “sometimes” leadership. Great leaders can create low performers as well. I liken it to a ship. A ship has a destination. In order to reach the destination, coordinates are set and the ship goes in that direction until it reaches it’s destination. Every employee on that ship fills a specific role to assure the ship continues on it’s course until its destination is reached. When I ask the engineer to do the chefs job as well as his own, or assign the Navigator the duties of the cargo master, I get mediocre results at best. In time neither job will be done to it’s most effectiveness. When I choose to run an entire ship in this manner, I will have a slow moving ship with continuous operational problems. I will eventually label people low performers because I placed them in situations where they could not perform according to thier ability. Sometimes in the name of Multitaking we overload employees, managers and departments and wonder why we get inconsistent results. Even a computer slows down if you run too many programs simultaneously. As I look at the problems in my department, it is plain to see that my constant “refocusing” of priorities to the hourly staff does not get me maximum results in any of the areas. I do not allow enough time for one or two priorities to take root and become hardwired. My goal is to have a goal. My goal is to reach a maximum of three goals BEFORE I refocus on a set of new goals. I have found that taking this approach has allowed me to successfully complete 90 day goals in much less time and allowed me to freely throw all of my attention on new goals and initiatives.

By: Tom Mayer

Tom Mayer — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:49:39 +0000

When I taught high school English, my superiors often tried to box up some great teacher’s techniques and impose those same techniques on everyone else. The result? A a myriad of forms and techniques for teaching English, all of which would save we beleaguered teachers from mediocrity. I suggest that the intangible qualities of a leader, and a teacher, for that matter, are what make them good at what they do. Therefore, of all the good insight offered in this article, I would be wary of submitting to the idea that we should always try to “duplicate[] what is working well.” Instead, perhaps we would do better to be motivated by those who show us that something can be done well. Our style is often less important than finding that deep well of motivation that stirs us to our best.

By: Scott Thompson

Scott Thompson — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:03:25 +0000

As a member of the public education sector, I have found both the Butterfly and Always Leadership pieces to be applicible to those of us involved in schooling. I took the liberty to slightly modify these articles-changing the healthcare terminology into education vocabulary- and forwarding them to my staff. These are simple, no-cost solutions to moving from good to great. I am excited about what these tools can do to make a difference in our schools.

By: lynette Saul

lynette Saul — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:20:19 +0000

On the floor or pounding the corridors with newly registered nurses it is very easy to deflate there eagerness to learn esp. related to competency in the clinical setting. Using a scaling system of “sometimes” to “always” allows the preceptor an avenue to recognize that a skill has been achieved whilst reinforcing the factor that consistency (always) is expected before a competency can be achieved

By: Ryan Hayden

Ryan Hayden — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:15:03 +0000

It’s unfortunate that the reason for this “Always” movement stems from the root cause of many problems in healthcare…that is we wait until a new regulation or compliance mandate says we “have” to do something. Then a new methodology is formed (“Always Leadership”) that is reactive to these mandates. I wish we could move to a position of being proactive rather than reactive.