I’ve had several visits to my physical therapist in the last month and each time I go I am so impressed with the work culture of the staff and their leader’s ability to give clear and credible instructions. The work environment is sometimes very hectic and fast paced, serving several patients at once and requiring each PT to juggle the monitoring, instruction and treatment of more than one patient at a time. At other times, the work environment is slow, the ratio of PT to patients is almost three to one and I always wonder if the PT’s are bored (although they don’t show it and seem to be having fun).
My physical therapist, Kim, is in charge of the other PT’s who seem to be at varying levels of experience. Here are five things Kim does well in modeling leadership without excuses:
1) Kim makes her expectations clear to the staff. She tells them which exercise they need to help me with and if it’s not a common exercise, she’ll demonstrate exactly what she’s looking for. She does not assume her common sense is their common sense about how to work with me.
2) Even though Kim is often super busy, she will always take time to give clarity about an assignment. This includes providing a rationale for why a particular exercise needs to be done in a particular way.
3) Kim ensures that staff have the capacity and capability of executing their assignments. If capability is unclear, Kim will take a moment to teach the assigned intervention or make a staff switch to a more experienced person.
4) Kim sets up frequent, brief check points to ensure that her team is following the treatment plans correctly and managing their array of patients smoothly. She doesn’t wait until a problem occurs nor does she wait until the end of the day to address concerning issues.
5) Kim treats high performers differently than average performers. I have overheard her mentoring and advising a less experienced (but high performing) PT during downtime about this person’s career opportunities. How great does that young PT feel about working there and giving 100%?
Your turn. Are you taking excuses away from the team by implementing some of these strategies that Kim uses? If not, I challenge you to take a small step in implementing Leadership Without Excuses. The “Leadership Without Excuses Assessment” CLICK BELOW
http://bit.ly/LWOChangeGrid will give you a full picture on how you are managing change and where your tension is at work. I encourage you to take it and schedule a complimentary debriefing session with me.
I wish you all the best!