The Power of Growing Our Own

One of my favorite parts of our Monthly Leadership Meeting is something we call the Power of One.

Each month, one of our leaders shares their story: how they got here, why they chose leadership, the people who influenced them, and the moments that changed the direction of their career.

I love it because I learn something every single time.

No two leadership journeys are the same. Some people know early exactly where they want to go. Others take a path they never could have predicted. Sometimes an opportunity appears at exactly the right moment. Sometimes someone else sees something in us before we see it in ourselves.

At our September meeting, Jerome Lowe, Cybersecurity Manager, shared his story. Jerome started at GBMC at a very young age as a Help Desk intern. Over the years, his career took him through desktop support, systems administration, engineering, cybersecurity, and eventually leadership. Along the way, other opportunities presented themselves outside GBMC. But, remarkably, opportunities to grow here seemed to arise at those same moments, too.  

Some of those opportunities were not necessarily jobs Jerome had imagined for himself. At times, they stretched beyond what he knew (or even what he thought he wanted to do). But people here saw his potential. Mentors encouraged him to take the leap. He did, again and again.

On one of his slides, Jerome called his journey “A consistent choice.” I thought that was such an interesting way to put it. His career was not one straight line. It was a series of choices: To stay, to stretch, to learn, and to trust the people who saw something in him. His own leadership philosophy today includes a simple idea I particularly liked: “Be the leader you’d look for.”  

There is an important lesson in that for all of us who lead people.

We have to see talent, not just vacancies.

We have to recognize potential before someone has every qualification on a job description. We have to give people assignments that stretch them, coach them when they are uncomfortable, and sometimes tell them, “I think you can do this,” before they are entirely convinced themselves.

Growing people is how we grow an organization.

That idea is particularly meaningful right now as we refresh GBMC HealthCare’s values. Our values will spell GREAT, and for the first time the “G” has a meaning: Growth.

I love that.

Growth means improving our skills and our organization, but it also means creating opportunities for one another. At a time when we are welcoming new people and new perspectives into GBMC HealthCare, it is equally important that we continue to recognize the extraordinary talent already here.

Jerome’s story is one example. There are many more.

And that connects directly to some of the changes we are making to our Monthly Leadership Meeting.

I begin every meeting by reminding our leaders why the time spent in that meeting is of the highest importance. This is the one time each month when leaders from across GBMC HealthCare come together to focus on our strategy, improvement, accountability, and the work of becoming better leaders for the people who follow us.  

That is why I ask everyone to be fully present. Phones away. Listening. Participating. Learning from one another.

And most importantly, taking the information back to their teams.

A leadership meeting only has value if what happens in that room (or on Webex for the folks who can’t be in the room) travels beyond that space.

To make that easier, leaders leave the meeting with a Leader’s Digest, which captures the most important information and action items they should share with their teams. We also provide The Download, a much shorter summary designed to go on huddle boards and bulletin boards so team members can quickly see a few important takeaways.

So, if you are a team member reading this and you haven’t heard about these resources, or you are wondering what your leaders are hearing at these meetings, ask them.

That is not being difficult. That is helping us build the kind of leadership culture we want.

One of the things Jerome said in his presentation was that leadership is the vehicle to the goal, not the end itself.  

Exactly.

The goal is not to become a leader.

The goal is to use leadership to make the people around us better, make our organization stronger, and ultimately deliver better care for our patients and community.

Sometimes that starts with something as simple as seeing potential in someone and asking them to take the leap.