The guiding principle behind Stanford Medicine Children's Health’s approach to leadership development comes down to changing one word — but it’s much more than just semantics.
“You hear the term ‘onboarding’ a lot, but we're challenging ourselves to think of it as ‘everboarding,’” said Marcia Kent, PhD, SPHR, SHRM-SPC, ACC, executive director of Enterprise Learning and Organizational Development at Stanford Children's. “It’s all about how we want to support our leaders at every stage of their career journey.”
To provide that support, Stanford Children’s built a series of developmental programs for leaders who have been in their roles for at least three months. Those eligible are typically managers to vice presidents. Three initiatives anchor the hospital’s efforts:
- New leader navigation. This yearlong program engages a multidisciplinary cohort of about 20 leaders. Following a full-day kickoff session, the cohort meets monthly with an executive sponsor for leadership lessons led by subject matter experts from Stanford Health. Topics include business and financial acumen, management, communication, systems, and strategic planning. The curriculum includes an introduction to The Empowerment Dynamic (TED*), a set of management and leadership concepts designed to help navigate conflicts that may arise in business settings.
- Leadership skills for managers. Structured similarly to the New Leader Navigation program, the aim of this six-month cohort is to foster peer-to-peer learning. Participants bring a completed 360-degree assessment to the first session and work monthly with the group to create personal development plans.
- New leader insights. This program is designed to open lines of communication between leaders and their teams. Kent convenes a workgroup without their leader present to gather feedback on what they would like to know about their leader, what they want their leader to know about them, their top priorities for the department, and suggestions on potential changes to current work processes and practices. Kent then summarizes their responses and brings everyone back together — this time with the leader—to discuss. “It really supports a new leader early in their team’s development to be able to hit those salient points rather than wait a year or two down the road — or worse, get it wrong,” Kent said.
Driving these programs primarily with internal talent is key to success, according to Kent. First, it saves money and frees up resources for more expansive leadership programs. It also gives more exposure to internal experts while ensuring lessons are aligned with the organization’s mission and protocols, especially important in areas like budgeting and finance.
Always seek improvements
An important aspect of the Stanford Children's leadership development strategy is the constant evolution of its programs. Kent’s team regularly solicits feedback from program participants and incorporates it into new iterations.
The organization is exploring additional methods of cultivating its leaders, including succession planning by identifying and developing emerging top talent internally and nominating non-supervisory staff for mentoring and management training programs. “There are a lot of people who are informal leaders,” Kent said. “They're trusted resources, they have a lot of institutional knowledge and are spheres of influence. It's really important to find ways to support our informal leaders as well.”
