In this phase of our virtuous leadership work we assessed desired character values that were core to ministry leadership. Members of the senior executive team at St. Vincent Health invested time to study leadership attributes industry-wide, and nation-wide, to determine those that best aligned and were congruent with our ministry and mission. The 23 values that were chosen were segmented into three areas:
This framework now concretely defines the core elements of St. Vincent Health ministry leadership character formation and they serve as benchmarks for assessing the strength of our individual values aligned with these elements.
Using this content, the St. Vincent Health Organizational Development Division customized the design of a values and judgment assessment tool, The Hartman Value Profile. This tool is used to assess the intrinsic strength of leadership values aligned with the aforementioned desired core elements of ministry leadership character for St. Vincent Health. This assessment assumes that every executive has these values and that every executive believes that these character elements are important to them personally. It's the strength of the executive's value for these core elements that is being assessed and codified.
The focus on value strength stems from the belief that the strength of your values will influence your judgment and decision-making. The stronger the value for moral excellence and holistic leadership – virtuous leadership – the greater the potential will be for our current and future leadership to contribute to and preserve our ministry and mission. Additionally, the stronger the value for moral excellence, the stronger our moral character will emerge when we are faced with difficult choices and trade-offs. We believe that we make better holistic decisions when this approach is woven into our leadership fabric at St. Vincent Health.
In addition to the assessment of our executives' intrinsic values alignment, the OD Division designed a 360 degree assessment and feedback tool using the same core elements for ministry leadership character formation to assess how these values are demonstrated throughout our ministry workplace. Associates who work intimately with members of the St. Vincent Health executive team are asked annually how the executive demonstrates character aligned with the 23 core elements. This 360 data is collected and compared with the intrinsic Hartman Profile data for each executive. The comparison highlights the strength of the executive's value for these core elements and it shows how the core elements are actually perceived through the eyes and experiences of those the executive works with in the workplace. One observation could be that, while an executive intrinsically values these core elements of character, his/her consistent display and/or “living” those values may be inconsistent. If this is who we say we are, it should be evident in all that we do.
Diagnostic Phase
In this phase, the Organizational Development Division of St. Vincent Health developed diagnostic reports from the Hartman Value Profile and from the 360 feedback tool. Based on the 23 core character formation elements, we profiled the executive team's combined intrinsic strengths and development opportunities and the combined strengths and opportunities of these elements, as perceived by the workforce through the 360 tool. We compare the results of both of these profiles in each of the fiscal years that the executive team takes the Hartman Value Profile. Our goal is to use these comparisons as evidence of progress and/or shortfalls in our virtuous leadership journey. It becomes a character formation scorecard, if you will.
Through the Hartman Profile, we also assess and diagnose our individual and collective spiritual balance indicators. Another goal of holistic and virtuous leadership is to influence balance for both the “work” dimension of leadership and the “self care” dimension of leadership, thus emerging a more holistic leadership approach. Holistic leadership requires the integration of one's whole self and value for the whole person, using these values to lead others.
From the opportunity side of our diagnostics, we identified specific elements from the 360 tool to begin our collective formative development. It wasn't surprising that the core element of self-awareness was perceived by the workforce as one of our lowest strength indicators. We can assume that we individually and collectively spend significant time and attention to contributing to the success of a very successful health care ministry. What the profile information infers is that we may not be as attentive to how we care for ourselves as we perform this work.
While the tangibles of success in this regard are evident, the price we pay is that we eventually run out of capacity as human beings to continue the fight. We run the risk of giving much more than we replenish and we ask/demand of those we lead to do the same. When we are so caught up in achieving the outcome – getting things done - we can easily forget that we bring our whole selves to this place that we call work, therefore forgetting that what keeps people energized and engaged is being treated and valued as human beings. We tend to forget that we, as leaders, are also human beings and we need reminders that the stronger our value for our own humanity, the greater the likelihood that we will bring this to life when working with others.
Our premise here is that valuing the human person begins with how we value our own personal humanity. We knew that if we were to begin this journey in earnest, we would have to ascribe to a fundamental principle of virtuous growth – self awareness.
Treatment Phase
In this dimension, we organized formal experiential interventions with the St. Vincent Health executive team to bring greater focus to this work – operationalizing the intangibles. We established formal Executive Formation Days as an operating platform for SVH executives to come together in dialogue, as one leadership community, invested in self exploration and self discovery.
We invested in the human person of leadership through focused education and competence - building learning and experiential events, with guided opportunities to practice what is learned. Our intent, in this regard, is to strengthen our competence and proficiency for holistic ministry leadership.
As an example, in partnership with Ki Thoughtbridge, we co-designed a series of self-awareness leadership workshops under their umbrella of The Inner Work of the Leader©. These workshops are intentional experiential practice fields for our executive team to explore and examine the many complex dimensions of leading holistically in times of change. My belief is that when we come together in a safe place, in dialogue, we have a greater opportunity to learn, challenge, trust and unpack the things that we have been afraid to discover in who we are as human beings. Time, humility and personal will is the prescription for progress in this event. We begin to value what it means to lead from the plateau and the notion of slowly boiling the frog evolves meaning greater than the gross picture it presents on the surface.
Through these experiences, we plan to catalog the most meaningful of the holistic leadership events -those that we determine to be most effective for spiritual formation and character development within our broader leadership population. This will begin the evolution and maturation of a formal holistic leadership and character formation process for the leadership levels below the senior executive team.
Measurement Phase
In this phase, we track and measure the results of our efforts to influence holistic leadership behaviors through the Hartman Values Profile, the LDR 360 Feedback and Assessment tool and through our witness of how we enrich our whole selves and how we execute the strength of our commitment to serve others.
Each executive is given the opportunity to take (and re-take) the Hartman Value Profile to see if their intrinsic value aligned with our core character formation elements have strengthened over time. Additionally, each executive will have an annual 360 review to see how the strength of their value for these elements are actually lived out in the workplace in the eyes of others. This ongoing assessment and validation practice will inform executives of where progress is evident, as well as what new opportunities to pursue. It will also point to areas for celebration and affirmation of virtue, reminding us that if this is who we say we are, it should be evident in all that we do.