PROFILING CATHOLIC HEALTH CARE LEADERS

Health Progress, Sep/Oct 2004 by Irvin, Diane, Gawthrop, Blair

A Denver Consulting Firm Has Developed a "Snapshot" of the Typical Ministry Leader

A recent study shows that leaders in Catholic health care are strongly committed to the mission, vision, and values of the ministry. They are smart, know their business, and demonstrate their commitment daily in workplace behavior. They are good, professional role models and are typically polite, self-controlled, and willing to lead by example.

The study was conducted by Strategic Programs, a national research and consulting firm based in Denver. We have assisted numerous Catholic health care systems in the design and implementation of "360-degree" assessment programs for leadership development. Indeed, having conducted more than 2,500 assessments of leaders in the health ministry, our firm possesses a significant database of leadership behaviors demonstrated by executives and other managers in Catholic health care. The study described here, conducted for CHA, analyzed data from more than 1,000 assessments in order to establish a benchmark behavioral profile for the 21st century leader in Catholic health care.

The aggregated results-involving managers, senior managers, and executives in 10 Catholic health care systems in 44 states-provides a clear picture of the qualities embodied in today's Catholic health care leader. The results present normative data that can serve as a comparison for individual leadership styles, competencies, and subcultures in the Catholic health care community.

DEFINING "360-DEGREE" ASSESSMENT

A "360-degree" assessment provides a leader or manager (the subject) with job-specific performance feedback from people in his or her circle of impact (the respondents). This feedback comes from superiors, peers, direct reports, customers, board members, and others related to the subject, as well as from the subject himself or herself. The use of multiple respondents in performance feedback increases the reliability of the results.1

When the 360-degree process is customized to the culture of an organization, the resulting reports provide individuals with information regarding others' perceptions of their workplace behavior, thereby revealing both areas of strength and areas for development. We at Strategic Programs work with client organizations to customize 360-degree assessment programs so as to incorporate subjects' input in developing job-specific questions, reflect performance expectations aligned with the organization's mission and values, form respondent groups sizable enough to ensure respondents' anonymity, and provide easily interpreted reports that include recommendations for development planning.

The Catholic health care systems that are our clients consistently use 360-degree assessment for professional development planning. (A few are moving conservatively toward other applications, such as performance review and succession planning.) Data collected in 360-degree assessments can also provide useful information for the selection of new hires for specific positions and to establish benchmarks for progress.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this project, our team was assisted by researchers from the Industrial and Organizational Psychology Masters Program at the University of Colorado at Denver and the Social Science Department at Regis University, which is also in Denver. After mapping the more than 2,000 behavioral questions in the customized assessment questionnaires used by our Catholic health care clients, we standardized the questions to reflect 108 core behaviors. (CHA's Ministry Leadership Development Committee reviewed the mapping. ) There was sufficient data to report on 103 of these behaviors; this data was included in the study.

These behaviors were then linked to 10 competencies, eight of which are included in CHA's Mission-Centered Leadership Competency Model: Spiritual Grounding, Integrity, Integration of Ministry Values, Care for Poor and Vulnerable Persons, Performance Excellence, Information seeking, Change Leadership, and Shaping the Organization. Two other competencies, People Development and Personal Characteristics, were added to house the remaining behaviors.

Following the mapping of behaviors, all scores in the database were converted to a five-point scale; and respondent groups were mapped into five core relationships (self, supervisor, peer, direct report, and other). Various leadership levels in the database were identified as executive, senior manager, or manager. The executives were CEOs, chief operating officers, chief financial officers, and others with "chief in their titles. Senior vice presidents also were included if they were responsible for setting their organization's direction and strategy. Senior managers report to executives and are responsible for key departments or functions. Managers report to senior managers and supervise supervisors. Although we have, for Catholic health care clients, developed assessment tools for all three leadership levels, the majority of assessments in this study concerned the executive level.