Should you move on as a leader? Today we explore the idea.
Today in health, it we're going to take a look to add the signs that it might be time to move on as a leader. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week health instead of channels and events dedicated to transform healthcare. One connection. At the time we want to thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders. Short tests are decide parlance, certified health, notable and service.
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And we thank you in advance. One last thing, share this podcast with a friend or colleague. 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. All right. This is a topic that's actually near and dear to my heart. I have a. I've stayed too long in certain positions in my career.
And there are other times where I have maybe left a little too early. And it really is a nuanced kind of thing. It's complex. It really depends on the individual, but there are some signs. Or some things that to consider that maybe it's time for you to move on as a leader. And I grabbed a couple of the, some of these are from personal experience.
I just threw some things on a piece of paper. And it's Friday. This is what I do on Friday. Just sorta talk about things. One of, one of the most obvious is when your, with. The alignment of your personal vision and values. Somehow fall out of line with your companies and it, they're not on parallel paths. They're not perfectly aligned at all times. And sometimes. Things change one way or another. And that is an indication that it might be time to move on. And I find that people don't recognize that and they stay longer than they should.
The company's values are changing. Maybe they're there, they have new management, those kinds of things. And sometimes they hope it's going to turn around and sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does. This is why it's complex and multifaceted. You've got to really think through it, but misalignment of values and vision obviously is a big one. I think, one of the things, when I look at leaders that are struggling to inspire motivate, when you're coming in and you're doing a turnaround or you're coming in for that, those first. Like three years or pretty easy. I find one of the hardest things to do as a CIO or as a leader in general is to reinvent yourself every couple of years. Not reinvent yourself so much as really spruce up the vision. And the strategy every three years or so. And a lot of people are good at that first one.
They come in, they do a listening tour. They hear what people have to say. They make some changes. People are happy. And then they They sort of Peter out there sorta end up on a, just a, a trajectory. It's an upward trajectory, but it's just a long drawn out. Slow upward trajectory. I find really great leaders are able to do that.
Recreate that event, recreate that coming into the organization and that three years a jump you're able to create that again in three years and create another jump. I think when you struggle, when you are struggling to motivate yourself, that's a problem when you're struggling to inspire your staff, that's a problem as well.
And that might be an indication it's time to move on. One of the obvious ones is declining performance. Now declining performance could be for any number of reasons. But I find a lot of times it's you're just burned out. You've been doing this for a while. You've lost your passion for it.
You're going through the motions. You're still good at the job, but you're just going through the motions and your performance is not. Potentially what the company needs. Or is not taking the company where it needs to go. That's something I'm always looking at is, am I providing more value to the organization I'm with than the amount I'm taking out? That's a critical indicator for me.
And I always want that. I always want to be on the positive side of that ledger. neXt thing, when you start to resist change, a lot of times when you come into an organization, you are the change agent. You'll find over time, you might become the one who's resisting change. And when that starting to happen, maybe it's time for you to move on, let new blood come in there.
That can change. The, there's some obvious things like when there's a trust breakdown or I don't know. You're just, you could even be going through some depression and struggling to go into work, but these are the obvious ones. Do you know when there's a trust breakdown between you and your team, you and your peers, you and. The leadership you and the board. Those things are obvious when when that happens, it might be time to move on. You should really take an inventory of. The innovation and the progress.
If innovation and progress, aren't moving forward, that's an indication that they're stagnation. And that's an indication of all the things that I'm talking about. Either your team is not responding to your leadership. Your team is not inspired. By you, your team is maybe burned out themselves.
Maybe you haven't taken care of them well enough. So when things start to stagnate, that's an indication. That it might be time to at least rejuvenate yourself in that leadership role or potentially move on. There are some positive things. Maybe you have the team that's ready to come up.
You've done the succession planning really well, and you've trained some leaders and maybe if you don't. Free up the spot for them to move into. They're going to move on. Now in many cases, that's okay. They can move on. They could become CEOs or whatever. And other organizations and that's good. It's good to see that. But sometimes it's a great opportunity for you to move on into something else and then to move in. To those roles and we've seen that done. Really effectively.
In fact, I think of Dr. David Benson, who moved on from the CMIO CIO role and made room for two great people to step into those roles. In fact, they split his role. He was so good. That they split his role for two people to step in there. And they've done a phenomenal job. The, I do a lot of personal executive coaching and whatnot.
And I start these questions. With people. It. And sometimes I think it drives them nuts, but I'm like, what do you want? What are you after? What are your career goals? What do you want your life to look like? I want people to design a life. They want to live and live that life. And when your personal goals start to veer away from. You going into work every day and leading that organization and they've, and they veer too far away. That's an indication that it might be time to pursue those personal goals and and walk away from what you're doing and make room for somebody else. There's, there, there could be some other things there, there could be if all of a sudden there's a lot of crises at your organization, that could be an indication that you've lost your focus. If there's a persistent communication issues within the organization, that could be an indication. That you're not on the top of your game or not really that your heart's not in it anymore. And I don't know.
I, again, these are stream of consciousness, kinds of things that I do on Friday. But I will tell you. I have conversations with leaders. Multiple times a day. Every week. And I identify at least one person a week that should be doing something else other than what they're doing today. And that takes courage.
It takes courage to recognize that takes courage to move on. It takes courage sometimes to take a less salary. To do something that's more in line with what your personal goals are. It takes courage to not know what's next. And still move on and make room for the people behind you. It takes courage to admit that you might be suffering from burnout. And that you might need some time away. And that's the that's the challenge.
It does take courage. It does take a certain amount of self-awareness and a certain amount of introspection. And. To be honest with you in the CIO role, you don't have a lot of time for that. You're constantly moving. And so I strongly encourage people to set aside time. One of the things that we do here at this week health is we have a two week production break at the end of the year.
And it's a, between December. And R between Christmas and new years. And we have done that. Actually, to be honest with you, I've done it in my career for the better part of about 10 years prior to starting this week health. And then I just continued it. It's good to have two straight weeks off at the end of the year.
And you know what, not a lot's happening in most, unless you're in retail, not a lot's happening. It's a good time to get away. A lot of people are taking vacation in those kinds of things. It's a great time to do the introspection. I've done a couple of podcasts on that time and how I use that time. And I strongly suggest you start carving off a couple of weeks away from work. You will see what your team can actually do without you. And you will get some time.
Some probably much needed time. To a. To really evaluate how you're doing, and maybe it is time for you to move on. Maybe it's not, maybe it's time for you to stick it out to rev that engine up a little bit more to redefine what the vision looks like over the next three years and to make the next big push. I don't know, like I said, it's a it's not cut and dry.
It's not something you can apply to everybody. It's something that everybody has to evaluate. All right. That's all for today. Don't forget to share this podcast with a friend or colleague. And keep the conversations going. We want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders.
Short tests are decide parlance, certified health, notable and 📍 service. Now check them out at this week. Health. Dot com slash today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.