Where Is Your Health Leadership?

Leadership is discussed in many venues and in numerous ways. The discussions are valuable because of its goal – Make us better leaders and better people. With much of the focus on business and personal leadership, a shift needs to happen, and it is to health leadership.

In my last post (Where Is Your Passion for Health?), we explored what it meant to be Whole Health passionate – it is an intersection of being personally healthy and personally engaged with our health data and system.

In health care circles, there is an added conversation level on being an engaged patient. There is, in fact, an organization dedicated to encouraging physicians and patients to be more interactive with each other. Check out the Society for Participatory Medicine for more information.

As we think through this more, being engaged really does mean being a health leader. We need to take a leadership role in our health, as do the physicians and clinicians we visit and engage.

Here is a way to think about it – The Health Leadership Matrix.

The Health Leadership Matrix

Lazy

If you are here, it is attitude adjustment time. If you do not own some aspect of your health, I am not sure how else it can be done. Simple advice:  Find a way to leave this quadrant – your life depends on it.

Proactive

In this quadrant, as an individual, I am willing to embrace my health care, meaning I will exercise, eat right, get an annual physical, and take care of myself as best I can. I am working diligently to avert health issues, at least in the ways I have control or a voice in.

Muddle

If we drop back down to this quadrant, there are unwilling team members present. Essentially, the physicians or clinicians may be unwilling to provide the data to us in a usable, electronic format. They may be unwilling to take the time to really listen to our questions and give more meaningful answers. Or, they may be unwilling to listen to what information we gathered and provide their perspective on our research.

It just gets messy and fosters a spirit of passivity in the care of our health. Passive leadership rarely wins in anything.

Empower

This is where it all clicks. We are fully engaged in our health as well as the physicians and clinicians working with us. It is a give-and-take relationship, an active discussion on what is going on in our health and how we can do better. Data is exchanged, managed, and tracked. A better understanding of what needs to happen, or what has happened, takes place.

We leave the office visits or the conversations feeling good about ourselves and what we need to do to continue forward on a healthy path. We all feel empowered!

The Empower quadrant is where true leadership happens. We take a leadership role in how our health is handled, and we find the team that carries the same mission and ideal about what it takes to fully embrace personal care. It is an all-in health leadership model.

Unfortunately, what often happens is misalignment. One is willing, but the others may not be. We slip into the Sphere of Frustration.

Think about it. If we are fully willing to ensure our health is on a good track, but our physicians or clinicians are more concerned about spending 15 minutes or less with us, then we get frustrated. If we want to manage our data, but our clinic does not want to give it to us, then we get frustrated. If we want to share health data and concerns, but the doctor brushes it off, then we get frustrated.

The same is true on the other side of the formula. If our physicians are trying to engage us to exercise more and eat healthier, but we ignore it, then they are frustrated. If our clinic wants to send our lab results to our Personal Health Record, but we don’t have one, then they are frustrated. If the doctor has information to share about how we need to address our health issues, but we delete it, then they are frustrated.

Today, many of us land in this Sphere of Frustration. It is a match between the willing and the unwilling; a battle between who is pulling who down. Instead, it should be a spirited leadership model where all parties in our health care formula are willing and, consequently, pulling everyone up, making everyone healthier in all facets of their life.

We all have a role in health care. Citizen. Patient. Doctor. Nurse. Dietician. Nutritionist. Physical Therapist. Trainer. The list is unique, based on who we are and our health opportunities and challenges. However, the essential common element needs to be that we all play a leadership role in advancing health care. It is a mutually beneficial partnership between us and our caregivers.

Now that is real health leadership!

Are you ready to lead in your health care? Are you ready to challenge or find willing team members to do the same?