So, I want to thank everyone today for allowing me to talk about leading from where you are. Again, my name is Sian Abdi, and I'm very excited about this topic. So in terms of goals, what are our goals for this discussion? Really to define leadership, understand the pathway we all take to get to points in leadership roles, then understanding how we can lead from where we are, and then I'll go over some of the ABCs of leadership. So what exactly is leadership? I think we think of the leader as the facilitator in chief. It is a process, and I'll say that again, it's a process of creating influence to maximize others' efforts toward the achievement of the same goal. When we think about all of us in the room today, we all are on different leadership pathways, but it follows the same streamlined efforts. We all start out first as high-performing individual contributors. There your priority is, hey, my number one priority is my work. I focus on the tasks at hand and try to be the best in my area. The focus is always, I always need to be prepared with the right answers. And oftentimes the high-performing individual contributor will feel recognized when they say, how well did I do at my job? Once that person is recognized, we all feel rewarded, and then oftentimes we are promoted to the next pathway in leadership. And the next pathway in leadership is the manager. So when we're the manager in our approach there, our priority changes. Now our number one priority is my team. And you really focus now on saying, I want to be prepared with the right questions. I want to recognize my team's performance. So you no longer operate alone anymore, but with and helping others. As a manager, you begin to see the big picture, not only the what, but the why. And execution becomes primarily an analytical challenge, and you really are shaping the broad picture. Then as you ascend through that leadership pathway, you will get other opportunities to really become the pivotal leader. And there the priority is my organization and the cause. Your focus becomes, I need to be prepared to ask the right question, and what's next? Oftentimes you view success as more of a measure of what is accomplished and how we can really set and execute actions. And what we try to do is recognize actions for the organization at large. And ultimately, your recognition is when your team performs well. And so we all may be at different stages in this leadership pathway, but it's important to recognize what we do, our priorities, what is success, so we can go to the next level. Now I will freely admit we all work in endoscopy, and leadership in an endoscopy unit is particularly complex. You know, it includes more responsibilities than solely people leading or influence or garnering. You know, an endoscopy leader must be able to do, right? You oftentimes may be a physician who has a day job seeing patients in a clinic, but then you also have to be a leader in your endoscopy suite. If you're the head of a smaller unit, you may lead and manage a myriad of day-to-day, minute-to-minute needs. And so I recognize that leadership in endoscopy can be particularly complex. So how do we all start? I think this is where we talk about really leading from where you are, because leadership is not about a title or authority. It is the energy and the purpose by which you lead yourself and how you serve others. So this means really that anyone can lead, regardless of their role and their pathway in that leadership continuum. So I want to take a moment to talk about the five ways to lead from where you are. First I want to talk about using your voice. It's really important for all of us on this talk to recognize and believe in ourselves and that our voice really matters. And in order to kind of share and believe in your voice, it's important in whatever task you're involved in within endoscopy leadership that you learn about your work and the industry and the organization in which you serve so you can improve your overall knowledge base. And that requires time. You've got to really spend time learning what everyone is doing in the organization, because then it allows you to talk and collaborate with others across various teams. The next slide talks about personal growth and keep learning. And for me, this is my favorite slide in the entire presentation. Because a successful leader has to be a lifelong learner. We all have to build on our skills. And that means really having time in our day to engage in personal growth activities, building on our communication, learning how to build better teams, and understanding change in management. And so what does that mean? That means whatever step in leadership you're in, you always have to be learning. So engage in things like leadership book clubs, or looking at TED Talks, podcasts, seminars. But if you are a leader, you should always be engaging in some activity on your own to build on your personal growth, your communication skills, and your skills as a leader. Next, I want everyone to understand that we all have to take time to set our personal goals. You really have to, every year, kind of sit down with your supervisor and maybe discuss, well, what are my supervisor's goals? Express what your goals may be. Try to align together and say, for this upcoming year, I would like to achieve X, Y, and Z within our endoscopy unit. Then also, beyond just setting goals within the job that you're in and your supervisor, you have to sit down and write down what your personal goals are. What do I want to achieve? How long do I think it will take me to achieve my goal? And what will my success look like? And along the way, to figure out how long it'll take and how you get there, you have to decide, are there anything that you need to do in the interim? Take a class, listen to a podcast. But ultimately, you do need to sit down and set your own personal goals. The other thing I want all of us to do is celebrate your own wins and progress. So, as you set down your personal goals and you achieve something or take a course, really reward yourself and celebrate the fact that you are really trying to grow as a leader. Lastly, I do always think it's important to raise our hand. You know, a leader just doesn't let things come to them. They have to create their own opportunities. So you can take on a project or a challenge and share your ideas. Oftentimes, when you're working in an endoscopy suite, you might notice something that is a hurdle, and maybe that's an opportunity to raise your hand and say, I'd like to be involved in a project to solve this hurdle or obstacle, because this is an opportunity for growth for myself as a leader, for my team as a leader. And lastly, I always want to remind everyone that we have to support, support our colleagues. It's very important that we empower others around us, because we do affect the way everyone in the unit operates. If we bring forth positive energy and always respond with encourage and act like a mentor, that type of feeling is contagious, and that's how you build a better environment and culture in your endoscopy suite. So I talked about the five ways to kind of lead from where you are and kind of a personal journey, but I want to take us back to the broader role of kind of the ABCs of leadership. So let's start with A. A really is for actions, right? Actions always speak louder than words. We always talk about the idea that it's not just, you know, instructing people to do things, but also for them to see you in the trenches, working day to day. You want to always be active in the way you manage. Try to always be present and visible. You don't want to just sit in your office kind of working on plans and various agendas. You want to move around the suite, be visible to everyone that you lead. And next, when we talk about A is for actions, I always talk about being valued for integrity because your credibility as a leader matters. You want the ability to influence your group toward achieving its goal, and that relies on the team's ability to take you for your word. So always try to be a credible part of your team and show integrity, and try to always be inclusive of everyone, whatever stage in leadership they are in, or whatever role they have in the endoscopy, to be included in the process of change and improving your endoscopy unit. I talked a little bit about leading by example, and really what I want to talk about is you really do have to set observable examples for all to follow in your leadership, right? You want patient care roles. You want a creative environment where someone who works hard is also celebrated by everyone else on the team. That's what we talked about earlier, about supporting your team. So you cultivate a team where everyone strives to be that next celebrated team member. When we kind of take a look at leadership, the typical leadership structure has always kind of been the top-down control, but I kind of talked about the idea that leadership is by example, and servant leadership really should be our aim and goal, because that really reigns supreme, and it really is that bottom-up approach of empowering your team, rolling up your sleeves, being visible, and engaged. Next, we'll talk about the fact that B, so B is for both. B is not only actions, but that words really matter. You have to use thoughtful, consistent communication. You want to be highly informative, but always respectful, and always appreciative of other people's roles, and so now what I want to do is kind of show you an example that how you say something really does matter, so I'm going to give you two examples in terms of how you might talk to someone with an issue. Susie Smith just called in sick and says she won't be able to work this Saturday. I need you to pick up a shift. You can imagine if you need a team member to step up because someone's called out, that might not be how you want to say it. What you might want to do is approach a team member and say, listen, I know this is a huge ask, and I'm sorry for the inconvenience I know it puts on you and your entire family, but you know Susie can't work on Saturday. I know you're supposed to be off this weekend, but our entire unit could really use your help in her place. I promise I'll make it up to you. When we think about how to say it, you can see that the second kind of verbiage really recognizes that you're causing an inconvenience for someone, tries to recognize their value, and then recognizing and saying, I appreciate you, and I promise that I'll make it up to you. So how we say something really and truly matters to inspire a team and lead a team. Next I'll talk about C is for consensus. We always have to be consensus driven. When we're leading a group and trying to make decisions, we really want to engage our team directly through discussion, because we really want to obtain people's buy-in. And how do you know about where people are from unless you ask? So sit down and say, we have this challenge ahead of us. Get their feedback. Get their understanding. Get their consensus. Because what you want to do is understand where they are to try to explain where we need to move to. And if you achieve consensus before a decision is made, typically you have fewer disagreements and people are less unhappy. And you really, you know, that lack of alignment is really the key issue. And lastly, there is a D. So I did say A, B, Cs, but now there is a D. And D really is for data, right? You have to be evidence-based. This is what I talked about learning and understanding your industry and what's going on. You have to collect and continually monitor, analyze, and make decisions and execute based on your units, operational data, and quality metrics. So that's why it's important to be a part of these larger groups to understand our organization and how we want endoscopy units to run. And then use that knowledge to apply it to your endoscopy suite. You continuously want to compare your data to peers, right? To really operate successful practice through benchmarking. And then when we also talk about D is for data and being evidence-based, this is not only what we know how well we're doing, but that's how we can kind of say, listen, I'm comparing ourselves to our standards and our peers. We're doing great. We're on the right track. Or no, we may be a little off the mark, and here's an opportunity for growth. The last thing I'm going to talk about is probably the most important thing in terms of building trust as a leader. How can we better train leaders to build trust? It's tough. Building trust is a hard thing, but the goal is you want to limit gossip, manipulation, intimidation, and gaslighting. You want to consider creating a written agreement with your team members to really get everyone engaged in outlining the ways that you want to handle conflict when it comes up. You don't want to be in a situation where conflict has happened or there's gossip in the unit and people are talking. You really want to say, let's have an open forum for communication. Let's be problem solvers and solution-oriented, and you want to be able to hear and allow people to express their concerns in a format that's supportive and that really is solution-oriented. Training leaders have to respond to mistakes compassionately. You want to really resist the urge to jump to conclusions and pass judgment. You really want to take a moment and ask yourself, what questions can I truly learn more about this person's experience? Try to empathize. Try to relate. How can I be curious and compassionate in these moments? You really want to try to model the art of being curious over the compulsion to just be right. It's not about being right. It's about allowing everyone to be heard, understanding their perspective, and then coming to a solution that really resolves the issue and makes people feel heard and makes people feel like, yes, we can move forward. Here's kind of a summary of all the components that make all of us a good leader, and I want to summarize this talk by saying it's really important that we have to lead from where we are. You really do need to set personal goals for yourself, and really, I want to emphasize, always keep learning and building your skills as a leader. Also, you want to help others on your team to maximize their contribution to the achievement of the entire group's unified, collective goals. Remember, actions, words, consensus, and data are critical components of successful leadership, and try to develop and cultivate a culture of trust. So I want to thank everyone for allowing me to talk about this important topic. Thank you.

leadership

influence

stages

endoscopy unit

ABCs of leadership