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Today in Health IT, we're discussing how leaders can build a culture of humility. My name is Kate Gamble. I'm Managing Editor for This Week Health, where we host a set of channels and events dedicated to transforming healthcare, one connection at a time.

This episode is brought to you by Chrome OS. Imagine a healthcare system where technology works seamlessly in the background, keeping your data secure, your teams connected, and your patients at the center of care. Visit ThisWeekHealth. com slash Google Chrome OS to learn more. So today we're discussing how leaders can build a culture of humility, and I'm joined by Sarah Richardson, President of Community Development.

Sarah, thank you for joining. Thanks for having me, Kate. So a recent LinkedIn post by Shannon Becker. VP of Information Systems at Sentara Health highlights research indicating that humble leadership not only fosters trust and collaboration. but also inspires leadership ambition among team members. The study emphasizes that leaders who admit mistakes, value team contributions, and actively seek feedback, elevate their employees workplace status, which can motivate them to pursue leadership roles.

This effect is particularly pronounced among individualistic employees who value autonomy and personal growth. So some of the key points in the article are defining humble leadership, Looking at the impact on team members, both now and in the future, and examining the cultural implications. And we're going to focus on how this type of approach can be transformative for CIOs.

So Sarah, when we say humble leadership, what do we mean? The perception could be that it's about being passive or soft, but what is your take on that? It's a topic we cover in our core values here at This Week Health. It's a book I've covered from my friend, Andrew Carr, who's the managing partner at 40AU and one of our partners called the Humility Imperative.

It's not about being passive or soft. It's about strength through self awareness. A humble leader will admit when they don't know something or have made a mistake. They'll ask for input from their team. They also give credit when it's due. That's something we saw in Good to Great. And then they lead collaboratively rather than through, let's say, rigid authority.

It's about confidence with openness. It's not about being arrogant or passive. And that's a really big distinction from the traditional leadership model, which often equates confidence with authority, focusing on top down decision making. Humble leaders take a more inclusive approach, fostering trust, innovation, and collaboration.

And the research is showing that employees can feel more valued and are more likely to step into leadership roles under humble leadership. Based on the article and on what you've read about this, Why does humble leadership actually increase leadership ambition? It's like the psychological safety that's created, and we heard it from Google's Aristotle project, where employees feel recognized and valued when their contributions are acknowledged.

And leaders who are seeking input, they're elevating the status of their team members, and they're making them feel capable. Of leading themselves. And studies have shown that when leaders admit mistakes, employees are more willing to take initiative and they feel safer taking risks. When I was at Tiviti, one of the things we would share is, all right, so what'd you screw up this week?

It was like, what was your failure moment of the week? So people could see that oops factor and how you overcame it and realizing that it was okay, not to do things right all of the time now. When you are allowing yourself to be in that space, when you encourage IT managers to present solutions, leadership meetings, to share the ideas.

And instead of taking credit for something, you may say this was Kate's initiative and it had a huge impact. That visibility and recognition will empower employees to step up. They'll contribute more. And eventually they're going to seek leadership roles. And I'll just share. When Beth Cooper and I worked together at Tiviti, we always had the plan for her to be my successor and get the C suite role when I moved on, or she would take that opportunity in another organization, and it worked out that because I had her present to the board and to my peers so often, especially in that sort of final year of preparing her for that, they saw her as my successor, and so when I left Tiviti, Even before I left, I said to the CEO, do you see Beth as my successor?

And he's absolutely. She's amazing. I don't know that he thought that I was asking because I was ready to turn my resignation, but it worked. She literally did everything right to get that role. And we made sure that. People saw it in action. They realized that she was set up to lead the organization effectively.

And that's what it looks like, at least from my perspective. And, I love admitting when I screw things up, because let's be honest, we screw things up every

It's what's the impact of it, and when it's administrative and little things here and there. that don't affect revenue, don't affect patient care, quality outcomes, etc.

It's okay to have those moments where you have to admit I need to be doing better or I need help because I don't know how to do this well. Yeah, that's a really great example. And it makes me think also about the importance of having successors and admitting or realizing that, at some point I'm not going to be in this role.

So I want to train the next person or the next group of people. And there's a humility there for sure. But when we look at the cultural considerations, this is something that we see in both Western and Eastern cultures. Why do you think that is? So Western leadership models, they reward assertiveness.

Maybe Eastern models value collective success. But when you But across cultures, employees thrive environments where they feel trusted, valued, and respected, which is the duh or aha moment. But regardless of cultural differences, people want to feel like their voice matters. And when you

hear, and respect people

their own environment, where they want

good job, they want to

expert, then you are literally removing Some of the barriers that would allow them to be able to adopt humble leadership, whether that's hierarchical leadership or fear of looking weak, if they admit mistakes, data shows us humility leads to higher engagement, better decision making and

So it's certainly something that resonates across the board, across industries, but in terms of healthcare, healthcare IT, for our audience, why do you think that this is so important and, what do CIOs really need to grasp about this? Healthcare IT today. Is so much about cross functional collaboration.

I. T. Clinicians administrators compliance. I'm going to throw in the finance supply chain aspects as well. It always was about relationships, but now even more. So it's not about being the technology team that. I used to be in the basement, and we got elevated to where we actually had windows, there were windows that couldn't open because it was an old building that was basically ready to be condemned, but at least we were out of the basement, and it used to be this black box of information.

Oh, that's the IT team, only they know how. The kimono was opened a long time ago. People realize that technology is everyone's responsibility. The CIO and the teams are enabling it. So when you're a humble CIO, you've got You're fostering open

ensuring that cyber security, patient data, these technically driven care solutions are working seamlessly together.

That's almost like a constant game of Jenga, never letting the tower fall. So when you have a crisis situation, like a cyber attack or like a system failure. The humble leadership creates faster problem solving because teams feel safe speaking up and solving the problem versus trying to figure out where to place the blame.

Yeah. And there's other examples, I'm sure when you're looking at top down decisions and how that can be detrimental when you rely on that type of a strategy now.

So there are some challenges to this, otherwise everyone would be doing it everywhere, but what are some of those challenges that CIOs and other leaders can face when you do shift to a more humble leadership style? All leaders are going to have a fear of losing authority to a degree. If you admit a mistake, does it make you seem weak?

That's also going to be cultural within an organization. I have worked in organizations. HCA was one where we prided ourselves on humble leadership and saying what worked and what didn't work. I've also worked for organizations where if you were seen as the reason something went wrong, you were basically like publicly flogged in a meeting.

So you may have resistance from traditional structures. Again, sometimes top down leadership is deeply ingrained. I encourage anyone who's seeking a new opportunity. Ask these types of questions so you know what the culture of the organization is. You can live through just about any type of budget scenario, staffing modeling, etc.

When the culture itself is not conducive to how you perform your best work, that may not be the right place for you. And then balancing humility with decisiveness. You still have to make tough decisions and be open to feedback. So if you think about how to overcome some of these challenges, I'm going to say lead by example, seek peer feedback and balance listening and action so that you're open to being a better leader.

Yeah, those are really good. That's really good. Tips, but one of the things that comes down to a lot is. How do we measure this? How do we know? And what are some of the methods that leaders can use to figure out, whether humble leadership is something that could benefit them? I always look at employee engagement scores.

It's actually one of the things I always asked for before I would start a new organization, like How open is the organization and willing in terms of sharing different ideas? What's your retention rate look like? Are people staying with the organization because they're growing? Are they staying because they're stagnant?

Are they staying because there's a sense of apathy or people leaving because they can't grow within an organization? And what is that pipeline for growth? How long does someone stay in their role before they move on? And what kind of support structures are put around people? You and I talked about this in the mentoring conversation is when you are promoted, you should always have mentoring and coaching so that you can be successful in adopting these new responsibilities.

So I'd say making sure you're asking for feedback, ask people what you can do to be better at work, acknowledge the contributions. Again, Hey, this was Kate's idea and here's why it has such a great impact. And then my favorite, my oops moments is really what I like to say is, here's my oops. And we talk about that in our staff meetings here at this week health.

Hey, where are you stuck? What's going well, what are the things you're working on? So when it's actively a part of your culture and your organization, then it's something people want to be a part of, especially when it makes them feel better about the work they're

Yeah. There's something so powerful about when leaders can model vulnerability.

It gives you permission to do the same, and we've seen that so many times in the interviews we've done, in the summits we've had, but it's something that can't be understated to me. So let's give some final calls of action. What can leaders do today if you're a CIO or executive leader? How can you start practicing humble leadership today?

Create culture where feedback is encouraged. And

when someone gives you feedback,

It's always, if you're going to ask for it, thank the person giving the information, even if you didn't love what you just heard. Recognize and elevate your team. Lead by example. Empower others to take initiative, make decisions, and support them with the outcomes.

Well said. And it's just a final thought. Leadership isn't about having all the answers, it's about creating an environment where the best answers emerge, and having the type of culture that enables that. The future of leadership isn't about who sh Isn't about who shouts the loudest, but who listens, empowers, and inspires the next generation.

So don't forget to share this podcast with a friend or colleague. Use it as a foundation for daily or weekly discussions on topics that are relevant to you and the industry. They can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Sarah, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks Kate. Thank you all for listening and that's a wrap.

That was good too. All right, we'll jump to this. I probably need to spin up another one. I'll do that and I'll just send it after we're done with standup, but this is really funny. Yeah, I like it. All right, sweet. All right. I'll see you in a second. The other one, and then we'll come back to Friday.

All right. Stop record first. Oh, please.