And I'm sorry that I have to prerecord my presentation. This weekend has become a bit more chaotic than I had anticipated, but I'm so excited to share with you my talk on mastering leadership essentials. These are my disclosures. So what is leadership? Leadership has been described as a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others toward the achievement of a goal. The core responsibility of a leader is really a mandate to help others on the team maximize their contribution to the successful achievement of the entire group's unified collective goals. So the leader is the facilitator in chief. So the goal of endoscopy leadership is really to achieve exceptional results by transforming the endoscopy enterprise and developing people to create the future. As a leader, you want to create a climate in the endoscopy unit that encourages everyone to strive for excellence and feel a sense of value, to build diverse teams based on the best combination of skills, job, and organizational fit, to really maximize the contribution of each team member, ideas, requests, et cetera, while developing cohesiveness among everyone. You want to mentor root cause problem solving, give feedback in a direct and tactful manner, and champion the goals of the endoscopy unit in clear and compelling ways. A common misconception is that you were born as a leader, and really, this is not true. Leadership can be developed, and hopefully throughout this course, you'll realize that. So what does it mean to be a good... So what does it mean to be a good leader? I'm gonna be walking through six different strategies that are really critical to understanding leadership. The first is the importance of leading from where you are. Leadership is not about a title or authority. It's the energy and purpose by which you lead yourself and how you serve others. This means that everyone can lead, regardless of their role in an organization. And there's really five ways to lead from where you are. The first is to use your voice. Believe in yourself, your voice matters. Learn about your work, industry, and organization to improve knowledge base. Spend time to learn what everyone else in the organization does. This allows you to really collaborate across teams. The second is personal growth and to keep learning. So successful leaders are lifelong learners. Build on your skills as a leader in areas such as personal growth, communication, building teams, change in management. There is a variety of ways to keep developing your skills, such as reading or podcasts or seminars. You also wanna set personal goals. So set annual goals with your supervisor. Set your own personal goals as well. What do you want to achieve? How long will it take you? What will success look like for you? And remember to celebrate wins and progress. Finally, you want to raise your hand. Create your own opportunities. Take on a project or challenge and share your ideas. Bring enthusiasm to the work that you do, whatever that may be. Identify opportunities that balance your skills, strengths, and goals with the organization's needs. You also wanna support your colleagues. Everyone has the power to affect others in a positive way. So you want to act as a mentor. You wanna cheer on others as your success is truly based on your team's success. Next, I'm gonna be reviewing what has been described to be the A, B, Cs and Ds of leadership. A is for actions. Actions speak louder than words. You want to manage actively. You want to be present and visible. Be seen as an engaged leader. You wanna roll up your sleeves and pitch in for the common goal. All those things that you learned in kindergarten. You also wanna be valued for your integrity. Your credibility depends on it. Your ability to influence your group toward achieving its goals relies on the team's ability to take you on your word. You also want to be inclusive. Say and show that you believe in your team each and every day. Remember, you want to lead by example. A leader leads by example, whether he or she intends to or not. You wanna set an observable example for all to follow in your leadership, managerial, and patient care roles. So instill and foster a culture that elevates, that recognizes, that values, and that appreciates teammates who go above and beyond. Create an environment where someone who works hard is celebrated by everyone else on the team. You wanna cultivate a team where everyone strives to be that next celebrated team member. Remember, you want to serve from bottom up and empower. You don't want to serve from top down and control. B is for both. Both actions and words matter. Actions speak louder than words, but words are also very important. So use thoughtful, consistent, verbal, and written communication. You wanna make sure that everything you say and write is highly informative, that it's respectful, appreciative, and also upbeat. For example, Susie Smith just called in sick and said she won't be able to work this Saturday. I need you to pick up her shift. How about instead, I know this is a huge ask, and I'm very sorry for the inconvenience it puts on you and your entire family, but Susie Smith 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 we'll make it up to you. You can see how much more compelling the second statement is. C is for consensus. Be consensus-driven. When leading your group and making a decision, engage your team directly through discussions that obtain buy-in from all. Achieve consensus before a decision is made. There will be fewer disagreements and unhappiness, less lack of alignment, and less potential subversion after a decision is made. And yes, of course, as I mentioned, it's not just the ABCs. D is for data, so be very evidence-based. Collect, continually monitor, analyze, make decisions, and execute based upon unit operational data and quality metrics. Continuously compare this data to peer and successful practices through benchmarking. Be evidence-based. This is the only way you know how well you are doing. By comparing your performance to other practices and units, this is your true, your true north. ASGE is your comprehensive partner in evidence-based endoscopy practice and can provide any materials that you need, so use these materials. Next, you wanna be sure to distinguish between managing and leading. So a manager administers while a leader innovates. The manager is a copy while the leader is an original. The manager maintains while the leader develops. The manager accepts reality, but the leader investigates reality. The manager focuses on systems and structure while the leader focuses on people. The manager relies on control, but the leader really inspires trust. The manager has a short-range view where the leader must have a long-range perspective. The manager also asks how and when, and the leader should really be asking what and why. The manager always has an eye on the bottom line, but the leader has an eye on the horizon. The manager imitates, the leader originates. The manager accepts the status quo. The leader challenges the status quo. The manager is a good classic soldier where the leader is his or her own person. The manager does things right, but the leader always does the right thing. And I really liked that mantra that I just showed from a University of Michigan leadership course that I took on kind of the differences between managing versus leading. But I think leadership in endoscopy units is particularly complex. It really includes more responsibilities than solely people leading or influence garnering. Valeria et al. describes endoscopy unit leaders who must be both capable leaders, but also proficient managers. And I think this is absolutely true. The endoscopy leader must be able to lead, but also do. So they need to continuously and actively manage the endoscopy practice, the unit, and all operational aspects, and also lead and manage a myriad of day-to-day, minute-to-minute needs. So moving on, it is very important to build a strategic agenda. So when you're building a strategic agenda, you wanna be thinking about what are the major issues, pressures, and decisions that are important for your leadership? And what specific objectives do you have? What actions do you intend to take? And whose help do you need to bring those to fruition? You may wanna think about things like improving patient satisfaction, or creating learning and growth opportunities, building internal business processes, achieving financial results or impact. But the strategy is which ones do you want to do right now, which can be more short-term goals, and which are really long-term goals? And thinking about all of this is very helpful when you come into a new leadership position. Next, you wanna be very clear about embracing expectations. So you want to build consensus on and communicate clear, institutionally aligned, and challenging direction. You wanna recruit, develop, mentor, and engage teams of collaborative, talented people, and include and respect all individuals and groups who are part of those teams. You wanna encourage intelligent risk-taking, encourage thoughtful experiments in everyday work to foster innovative and creative initiatives. You wanna gain firsthand knowledge of the endoscopy unit's processes and problems, asking why to learn more about causes of problems and help with problem-solving. You want to understand that the health and safety of patients, faculty, staff, and students are at the heart of the work. You wanna demonstrate the highest level of integrity and ethics in all that you do and say, and understand market and industry trends, champion business initiatives and relationships to remain market competitive and innovative. And finally, perhaps the most important component of leadership is team-building. And this is particularly true in an endoscopy unit. Modern endoscopy really delivers high-volume procedures that can be daunting, embarrassing, and really uncomfortable for patients. So these procedures really must be performed to high standards, but oftentimes resources are scarce. So how do you get more efficient with higher turnover of patients while also simultaneously providing a good patient experience with high quality and safety? There has been a huge growth in the volume of endoscopy over the last several decades. And all of these changes have increased the pressure on endoscopy teams and leaders. And I know we'll be hearing more about that later today. Endoscopy services are not usually isolated independent units. These sit within organizations and the success of the unit is often tied to the success of the organization and the services affected by the governing power. So there's really 10 tenets to team-building in endoscopy. And the first and perhaps the most important is a shared purpose. Everyone should understand what constitutes a great endoscopy service. So achieving this is really the prime purpose of the team. All efforts should be directed at person-centered, highly efficient, high quality, and safe care. The next is a good understanding of individual roles. So team members must really understand their roles and those of others. And communication should be very clear about how to work together to accomplish tasks. So each team member should take their fair share of the burden and also should be prepared to support others at moments of stress or demand. You also wanna make sure that you're making good decisions. So clarity of decision-making processes within the team is very important. So team members should have permission to make decisions at key moments when it's appropriate to do so, but should be making decisions on reasoning and not on rank. Excellent communication is really critical. So you really wanna develop a culture of openness and listening to understand. There are a variety of ways that information is exchanged, as we all know, but you must engage in regular discussion and everyone should really have a chance to contribute. Concerns should be expressed to those who are responsible for dealing with them and disagreement should be viewed as a good thing. So conflict should be managed, but team members diffuse tension and friction in relaxed and informal atmosphere. So excellent communication is really of critical importance to leadership and endoscopy. Problem solving is also very important. So the team is effective at identifying problems and proposing solutions and errors and near misses should be regarded as opportunities to better understand and to improve the service. And really no one should be blamed for things that go wrong. Team members should be involved in the development and implementation of new ways of working to improve the service. You also wanna make sure that the team operates effectively. So the team has the resources and skills needed to deliver the service effectively and efficiently. It has clear objectives and ways of measuring them and the team uses metrics to monitor and improve team working. You also wanna strive for continuous improvement. The team learns avidly from experience and from feedback from patients and staff and trainees and should be constantly looking for ways to improve. The team should use data like we discussed earlier to refine processes and monitor improvements to really optimize the use of resources. You also wanna emphasize flexibility and adaptability. So the team members should perceive new challenges and change positively as an opportunity to improve the service. They adapt to change quickly and also smoothly. You also wanna develop individuals. So the team has a culture of supporting individuals to develop and to achieve their potential but talent should really be identified and nurtured and team members are offered opportunities and challenges with support and mentoring to excel. They are provided really with career guidance to prepare for and move beyond the service when that is appropriate. And you also want recognition and reward. So the team should regularly review performance and celebrate successes. Outstanding achievement is recognized and should be rewarded. I really like this schematic that I took from one of the other presenters in the course but a good leader really does all of these things, has very clear communication, provides good encouragement, clear goals, provides support, really focuses on the team aspect, has vision, stimulates work, has integrity at all steps of their leadership, inspires, recognizes and really sets a good example for the rest of the team. So in summary, lead from where you are, set personal goals and always keep learning. Leadership can be developed. Help others on your team maximize their contribution to achievement of the entire group's unified collective goals. Actions, words, consensus and data are critical components of successful leadership. Lead more than manage but in some cases do both. Build a strategic agenda, develop and cultivate a culture of trust and really focus on team building. Thank you so much.

leadership

team development

communication

strategic agenda

continuous improvement