FROM THE PUBLISHER:
When I started out as a young hospital CEO in the mid- 70s, having come up through the financial ranks, I asked Mardian Blair, my board chairman and the president of our healthcare system, if he could recommend a good book that I could read on healthcare leadership. He said that there weren’t any that he knew of. As a graduate student in Healthcare Management with the University of Minnesota in its Independent Studies Program (ISP), I asked my professors for a good book on healthcare leadership and received the same answer. My preceptor in the University of Minnesota ISP program, Roger G. Larson, former president of Metropolitan Hospitals (now Legacy Health System) in Portland, Oregon, also couldn’t recommend one.
Finally there is a book for healthcare leaders that only comes along once in a generation. Dr. David Lawrence shares with the readers his vast experience in leading the largest non-profit health system in the country.
He shares what a leader is: One who says, “Let’s get it done.” A leader who shares a vision, a leader who enables his/her team to stretch themselves, a leader who builds a team and a group of leaders, a leader who can lead change, a leader who can work with both physicians and boards of directors, a leader who is fearless, and most of all, a leader who is humble.
This book suggests practical strategies that can be adapted in any healthcare setting. There are gems in every chapter that bring one to say: “Why didn’t I think of that or why didn’t I do that?”
This is a must read for today’s healthcare leaders that want to lead their organizations in rapidly changing times. It is a must read for any healthcare leader that wants to improve their leadership. It is a must read for any aspiring leader that wants to take on more responsibility. But most of all, it should be required reading for every graduate student in an MHA program or an Executive Healthcare MBA program.
We hope you enjoy the book as much as we did publishing it.
~~Jerry F. Pogue
