On Friday March 5, nineteen Health Services managers graduated as members of the inaugural cohort of the Health Services Leadership Excellence and Advanced Practicum (LEAP) program. LEAP is a leadership development program for experienced managers offered by the Health Services Management Development Program (MDP).
As an important part of achieving Health Services’ vision of being recognized nationally as a model integrated health system, and our goal of establishing a high-performing workforce, the LEAP program helps managers learn practical skills and techniques to help them become more effective at engaging, leading and developing their teams in ways that will help to support Health Services’ journey of transformation and culture change. LEAP builds on the initial MDP offering, the TOP program, which helps managers transition into their new roles. LEAP focuses on helping high performing managers take their leadership to the next level. This includes practicing emotional intelligence in order to cultivate the culture of psychological safety that teams require in order to achieve excellence; and embodying whole systems mindsets that support thinking and acting on behalf of the entire enterprise.
In her keynote remarks to the LEAPers during their virtual graduation ceremony, Health Services Director Dr. Christina Ghaly talked about the key role that Health Services supervisors and managers play in leading frontline teams. “It’s all about the people,” she said. As frontline teams provide care and services on behalf of our patients and communities, managers should focus on supporting their teams, including by harnessing emotional intelligence to be responsive to their team members’ needs. She encouraged LEAPers to never be satisfied, and to focus relentlessly on continuing to improve. “No one has every skill,” said Dr. Ghaly, “but they can be developed.”
Throughout this program, LEAP participants have had the opportunity to develop relationships as part of a multidisciplinary community of Health Services managers, and learn new mindsets and skills to practice with their teams back on the job. Throughout the program, LEAPers were able to reflect on those experiences during group coaching sessions and support one another as a community of change agents and lifelong learners.
As part of the graduation program, LEAPers shared their Vision Stands, expressions of their own visions of personal leadership. Leaders from across Health Services who joined in the virtual graduation ceremony had the opportunity to listen to the LEAPers, share their own feedback, and talk together about further opportunities to take learnings from the program back to the rest of the organization.
After graduation LEAP alumni will be applying and advancing their skills on specially curated leadership practicum projects, advised and mentored by Health Services enterprise and facility leaders. These projects will allow LEAPers to deepen the impact of their leadership by contributing to strategic organizational initiatives beyond the scope of their day-to-day roles as team leaders.
Applications for the next LEAP cohort, tentatively expected to start in fall 2021, will open up later this year. For more information, please visit the MDP SharePoint site or contact the MDP team at MDP_Team@DHS.LACounty.gov
