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Colleagues,

I am assisting a friend in compiling a presentation, part of which examines the skills, knowledge, and competencies that executives believe are absolutely essential for departmental managers in order to be successful.

If you would reply with your 'Top 3' essential skills, knowledge, and competencies, I would be most appreciative.

Regards,

Garry W. Kauffman, MPA, FACHE

1.  The ability to translate strategic vision and goals to those on lower levels of the organization, to make it relevant. understandable, and to give their jobs meaning in the larger scope of things.  An analogy would be to help an Environmental Services Technician (Housekeeper), understand that it is more than just about cleanliness, its about keeping the staff and patients free from infection, about presentation of the hospital in a manner that would drive confidence (clean hospital must mean good care, right?), and about marketing (see above parenthetical statement).

2.  Financial and quantitative skills enough to know how to budget and then track P&L, schedule people for maximum efficiency and effectiveness, and how to market - to grow the business.

 3.  An overarching necessity is how to communicate (related to #1 above).

No easy one-word answers to your question, but I answered from observation.

Look at Behaviors, Attitudes, and Communication Techniques.  

Behaviors:  Goal Setting, daily behaviors to reach goals, attracting top talent, training, team-building, benchmarking (financial and operational), motivating

Attitudes:  Strong positive attitude about healthcare, their service area, facility, medical staff and themselves.  Need to allow their behaviors drive their attitude

Communication Techniques: Can they ask questions effectively?  Questioning skills provide the leader with advantages such as:  control, clarity and information, an opportunity to listen, bond with their staff, and persuasiveness.  Will the leader stay emotionally detached so to effectively lead, yet be able to get staff emotionally involved in the success of the unit. 

Most leaders will fall into a "transactional" or "transformational" approach - the true leader knows how to use both.

Paul Szklarski, FACHE