Many leaders may feel like they need to create a positive narrative, even if it’s built on a false foundation. There’s a tendency for some leaders to share dishonest good news rather than honest bad news.
Laura Forese, MD, executive vice president and chief operating officer of NewYork-Presbyterian Health, stands out in my mind as an example of how to build trust, even if it’s difficult.
Every evening Laura would hold a town hall for anyone who worked in her system. She’d share a statistical update on the state of affairs, which at the time was often frightening. She’d report the number of patient deaths, patients discharges, and the numbers of patients who were hospitalized, in ICUs, or on ventilators. Her nightly meeting wasn't limited to executives or managers. Anyone could log on to the system’s intranet to watch. During a shift in the ED, I looked around and nearly everybody was watching between patient tasks or during breaks.
Her approach to communication was based on clarity and transparency. She could’ve held all that information close to the vest and assumed we as caregivers couldn't handle data that showed a grim picture of what was going on. She showed us she trusted us by sharing this information. She also regularly expressed her trust in us and her gratitude for what we were doing. You couldn't help but trust her in return. She made us feel important, that someone was noticing what we were doing, and that we were equal partners.
As a result, you wanted to continue to work and to show up for your next shift with a new and positive attitude, hoping that what you did that day would lead to better outcomes and better numbers in her next nightly report. She earned the respect of all of us who were working on the front line.
The result of each of these lessons is trust, engagement, teamwork, and — eventually — success, not only for caregivers, but for entire communities.
About the author: Wing Province, MD, is a board-certified emergency physician who serves as medical director of Intermountain Healthcare's Park City Hospital and of the Healthcare Leadership Institute.