The best leaders will look to others | Lessons for leaders
Edward Jimenez, the new CEO of Main Line Health, says healthcare executives should look to assemble teams of complementary members who make everyone better.
The healthcare industry is going through significant changes, and Edward Jimenez likens the situation to standing with your feet in the water at the beach.
Jimenez, the new president and CEO of Main Line Health, points to how quickly the setting can change as the tide rolls into the shore.
“You think your feet are stable, and then you look down and it's covered by sand, and then you try to move. But it's sometimes not that easy. But when you lean on others, things get more and more capable,” he tells Chief Healthcare Executive®.
Sometimes, it’s easy for leaders to feel like they need to do it themselves and even be superheroes. Jimenez says that’s an understandable sentiment for the leader of an organization.
But he says it’s better for leaders to value and maximize the value of their teams, especially in a rapidly changing environment.
“Leaders, in many ways, we're taught to be superheroes, that people look up to us,” Jimenez says. “And I think that's okay, but the best leaders value their teams. The best leaders look to others.”
Jimenez took over at Main Line Health last month, succeeding longtime CEO Jack Lynch, who led the system in the Philadelphia area for 20 years. Main Line operates four acute care hospitals, a rehabilitation hospital and a host of other clinics and outpatient clinics.
He previously served as president and CEO of University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, and as CEO of University of Florida Health’s Shands Hospital. So Jimenez says he’s learned the value of teamwork over the years.
“I would say no different than standing at the shore, feet in the sand … look to others when you need them,” he says. “Things will be all right.”
Healthcare leaders also should look to assemble teams that possess complementary skills and bring out the best in one another, rather than going out to assemble a team of all-stars.
“For the last 20 years of my career, and it coincides with when I became a senior executive, I have completely valued the notion that a table full of complementary skills to my skills is absolutely the way to go,” Jimenez says. "Once you have a team where everybody has a a skill they bring to the table, the team is better."
Jimenez points to the great Chicago Bulls teams that dominated the NBA in the 1990s. Yes, Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest player ever, led the Bulls, and he had a Hall-of-Fame teammate in Scottie Pippen.
But the Bulls teams also featured players such as John Paxson, Steve Kerr and Luc Longley, who contributed mightily to those teams but weren’t necessarily all-stars during the Bulls’ remarkable run.
“They brought skills to the table that complemented what Jordan and Pippen had. Now, they naturally needed a great coach,” Jimenez says.
Other teams that have tried to assemble a roster of superstars haven’t been nearly as successful, he says. “It's still gonna go back to team,” he says.
Bringing it closer to home, Jimenez points to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Super Bowl champs. They had a good team the previous year, but added complementary players, and the great Saquon Barkley, to bring home the Vince Lombardi trophy.
“I'm a big believer in having a team filled with people that have wonderful skills, because that's what's absolutely going to make the organization better,” he says.
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