Category Archives: General Leadership

January 15, 2024 · 7:39 pm

“Do you ever forget?”

My niece asked me this question recently.

We were talking about a small black “tattoo” she noticed on my left wrist; a cross with the letters “s” and “a.” I explained that they represented the Latin phrase “Sequor Agnum,” or “I follow the Lamb.” The image is a reminder to me of my daily efforts to follow the life and teachings of Jesus Christ who is depicted more often as a lamb in the New Testament Book of Revelation than any other apocryphal image.

It was the unusual circumstance of this mark that drew her question. I confessed that the “tattoo” was actually something I drew on my wrist with a Sharpee every morning as part of my imperfect efforts to center my focus and attention on what I hoped would be the organizing principle of my day. When she asked the question, I confessed to occasionally forgetting to draw it in the morning and explained that when I noticed it missing I would find another pen and complete the daily ritual. I did forget. But as I recalled the conversation, my casual explanation of the remedy for my forgetfulness obscured a deeper realization.

We all forget.

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August 9, 2023 · 7:35 am

On being the Ted Lasso of anything

At a conference recently, several of my colleagues referred to me as “the Ted Lasso” of our institutional discipline. I was taken back at first as I wondered which features of this popular television character they thought I brought to mind (beyond perhaps my slightly too generous mustache). But the more I have thought about what I know was intended as a supreme compliment, the more I have come to embrace it. It is both honorable and at the same time aspirational.

Here I have to add something of a disclaimer. There was a pretty long time between when I watched the first Ted Lasso episode and when – following someone’s recommendation – I give the series another try. I thought the premise was another example of the ridiculous situations that characterize television sitcoms: an American football coach called upon to coach a British football (“soccer”) team with zero knowledge of the game who at the same time appears as the stereotypical caricature of a “good-old-boy” American. And frankly, there have been other moments watching that I have taken a pause on the series because some of the themes and language were a bit too much for my relatively conservative background. We eventually watched all three seasons and some episodes more than once. (The dart game may rank among my favorite of any television scene I have ever watched, S1E8.)

Still as I consider what Ted Lasso represents – especially through the filter of analyses like the Steve Cuss Podcasts and his approach to systems theory (Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs) – I embrace the metaphoric compliment and in specific have contemplated several aspects of the Ted Lasso character that I hope my colleagues intended in likening me to him. (These are grouped in an outline from Paul of Tarsus in a letter from prison to his “team” in Philippi). Continue reading →

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November 8, 2021 · 6:43 am

The Bat-Phone and Leader Presence

Recently I had the opportunity to speak to the mother of an infant hospitalized with respiratory illness in a hospital in another state. She was the daughter of a friend of a relative but it was a joy to speak to her, talk through some of her concerns and reassure her that from what she was telling me, she was in good hands. (Her baby did well!)

In the course of the conversation, I remembered that I knew a senior physician at the hospital and I send him a quick text. By the time I caught up with him a little while later, he had already been to the patient’s room. He missed the baby’s mother but left his card with his cell-phone number in case she needed anything.

His generous gesture reminded me of the “Bat-Phone” we instituted when I was a hospital CEO (Commander) a decade or so ago. I am relatively sure that I stole the idea from Quint Studer or another of the quality and patient experience gurus to whom we owe so much of the great things we were able to do at that facility while we were shaping a “Culture of Excellence.” We shared the Bat-Phone cell phone number with all of our staff, our hospitalized and ambulatory patients – probably thousands of people. I carried the phone with me every day. It was a visible symbol of our efforts to be accessible to our staff and patients. In addition to the phone number, we also had a link on our public and internal websites where people could reach out to the CEO by email directly. Continue reading →

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October 10, 2018 · 8:39 pm

“The Service” & the Social Determinants of Health

In presentations I have made in the past year or two I have had to confess to a relative inexperience and unfamiliarity with the social factors that can adversely affect a population’s health and well-being.

My inexperience is the result of having spent nearly my entire medical and leadership career practicing in the military medical system. Until recently my patients, their parents and families were all active duty or retired military. As a group they had education, jobs, housing and access to healthcare. We know that only about 20% of what makes our patients well or not is a result of health care (despite our inclination to think that those of us in health care are located at the center of the wellness universe). For the remaining eighty percent of what influences health and well-being, our military patients had the benefit of the positive effect of education, jobs and housing. Continue reading →

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June 9, 2018 · 11:05 am

Diversity: Beyond optics to vision.

It was relatively late in my leadership career when the concept of diversity became something we started talking about. (Or perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention before then.) Mandatory diversity training was directed by the organization I was a part of and I don’t remember thinking much of the information. I don’t think I got it.

A few years later in a CEO role I recall a conversation with a younger, African-American member of our staff who became a mentor to me. She was the first to suggest to me the potential role of implicit bias in our employee evaluation process. At first, I pushed back. But I can remember the feelings as her words sank in and I realized she might be right: about our organization and about me. It was a significant emotional moment. I remember where I was standing in my office.

What she said resonated with a concept I had long believed. It was best summarized in an article I stumbled across about an obscure lung disease early in my pulmonology career: “We see only what we look for; we look for only what we know” (Sosman MC, et al. Am J Roentgenol Radium Ther Nucl Med 1957;77:947-1012). We don’t see what we’re not looking for. I think I was beginning to get it.

As the hospital’s senior leader I noticed that most of the faces around our board table looked just like mine; consistent with about 85% of all hospital executives. Our organization and our patients had a very different demographic and I began specifically looking for leadership candidates who did not look like me in race or gender. I had resolved that it was a matter of bad “optics.” At a minimum, a leadership team that doesn’t reflected the diversity of the organization won’t inspire young leaders from different groups to seek positions of responsibility.

But just settling with optics as the reason for diversity also makes the fundamental mistake of assuming that people who look alike are alike. It assumes that all you need to achieve diversity in leadership is to add people who are different than the majority to make the team look good. But you can have bad optics with a team that looks bad or with a team that merely looks good for the sake of appearance. I realize now that I was missing the point about optics.

It was sometime later, perhaps after working in Africa a few times and then settling into a neighborhood where I am the minority that I feel like I am finally beginning to understand.

The lack of diversity in healthcare leadership is a matter of optics.
But it’s not a matter of looking bad. It’s a matter of seeing badly.

A diverse representation of demographic groups and gender at the executive table brings the ability for the entire leadership group to see the issues of the workforce, the patient population and “customers” more clearly and in ways that would be impossible without the range of perspectives.

Diversity is the lens through which the leadership team can look more deeply into the challenges and experiences of a particular group and community (microscopic) and can look farther into the future in envisioning better ways to address the populations’ challenges (telescopic). Inclusion is the willingness and openness of the team to look through all of the different lenses.

I guess I was right about the optics, but was initially wrong about vision. I am still pretty shortsighted at times and I will never say that I completely “understand” or that I get it. That is a conclusion best drawn by others.

But things are becoming clearer.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front      https://henryv43.wordpress.com/

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February 11, 2018 · 9:45 pm

Play like you have nothing to lose.

“How many of you have ever worked for a bad leader?”
(Every time I ask the question almost everyone raises a hand.)

“What made him or her a bad leader?” I usually ask. You hear a number of different responses. Occasionally someone will talk about a truly toxic leader. But most of the time the common answer is more like this:
“They only cared about themselves.”

“And how long did it take you to figure that out?”
“About five minutes,” I have heard more than once.

I wondered today whether the common problem with these self-concerned leaders is the inability to play like they had nothing to lose.

Frankly, as leaders we always have something to lose. When we make the hard call, stand by our people, serve as “poop-umbrellas” absorbing or deflecting the “stuff” that sometimes rains from on high we run the risk of everything from taking heat to losing our job or reputation. Which brings me to the events of the past couple weeks.

I confess I have had to resist joining the throngs who have written about the recent Eagles Super Bowl victory, especially as a fan for almost half a century; onephiladelphia_eagles_logo_4008 who remembers clearly the many “almost made its” and “there’s always next years” that have become the stock jargon of Philly fans. But indulge me as I can’t help but think that there is a leadership lesson in their victory this year.

Who goes for it on fourth and goal from the one yard-line just before the half with a trick play that they’ve never run before; throwing to a guy who hasn’t caught a pass in a game since high school? What coach listens to the players on the field and takes a gamble that if it had failed and they ultimately lost the game would have been the play every pundit would point to as the moment of supreme mistake, ultimate error, the deadly “momentum changer” that doomed the game to defeat.

But even after watching and re-watching the clip and listening to the recorded dialogue, I don’t get any sense that there was a fear of taking heat, losing job or reputation as the decision was made.

They seemed to be playing as though they had nothing to lose.

It’s easy to understand why a leader might do otherwise. A politician works hard to get elected and becomes motivated to remain in office. A healthcare administrator works her whole life to become a hospital CEO. An officer begins the journey to general as an ROTC cadet. A teacher gets his masters then doctorate with the hope to one day become a principal and then the day finally comes. The next in line for corporate CEO is competing with scores of others. A coach or player is finally in the Super Bowl…

I wonder sometimes whether the fear we take counsel of is ultimately the fear of loss to self. And whether we can too quickly allow that fear to keep us from taking the risks we must to achieve organizational success. Certainly, there is much at stake. But Teddy Roosevelt has advice for every leader who is willing to get into the arena:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” (April 23, 1910)

This week the credit belongs to a team of leaders who played as though they had nothing to lose and won.

Next week the same opportunity may be ours.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front      https://henryv43.wordpress.com/

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July 4, 2017 · 10:24 am

Learning Leadership in the City

Ten TwelveOn a clear, breezy summer Saturday morning in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, 10:12 Sports Director Jeff Thompson speaks to a young player about character in the context of a flag-football game. In the background, the Ravens and the Bengals play the fifth game of their season.

In this neighborhood, 60% children live below the poverty level, 80% of households with children under 18 are female-headed, unemployment is 17% and a quarter of kids never finish high school. The field where the young men play is half a mile from the scene of the uprising and violence surrounding the death of Freddie Gray in 2015.

This is the neighborhood where Jeff Thompson and his volunteers work with young men teaching the fundamentals of character and leadership from a Christian perspective. The lessons are framed against the backdrop of a flag-football league that also employees local youth on weekends as referees, linesmen, and statisticians.

Character is the foundation of almost any leadership model. The ability to “lead self” is crucial before one can attempt to apply almost any other leader competency. There’s much that a developing leader can read about the importance of character and no shortage of books on the subject. But no book can teach what we learn from credible mentors who serve as examples and who listen to understand.

Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.” Leadership guru Michael Useem took that same idea one step further: “Leadership is best learned from example and best communicated through example.”

Still a relative newcomer to Baltimore, I have joined the search for the magic, missing ingredients that once applied will cure the city’s woes. I know already that there isn’t any single thing. But on this Saturday morning these young men – in the context of a community who loves and cares for them and who holds them accountable for their actions – were experiencing the closest thing I have found to a foundational first step.

“Leadership is character in motion” (Les Csorba).

For these young men on any given Saturday there is more in motion than the football and the players on the field.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front      https://henryv43.wordpress.com/

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May 23, 2017 · 7:45 am

Reflection: The Leader’s Gift – Presence

If the currency of the economy of relationship is trust, the currency of leadership is presence. To “be there” at the critical moment for an individual, a team or an organization is the essence of a leader’s effectiveness. Presence requires of the leader attention and intention. Good leadership is always intentional and “attentional.”

When I was helping to lead a community hospital in Virginia a decade or so ago I decided to count through the course of day every single human interaction I had – in person, in the hallway, in an executive or hospital meeting; by phone, email or text. I carried a 3×5 card and made little pencil tick-marks throughout the day. At the end of the 18 hours or so of measurement I counted 283 pencil marks: 283 encounters. The requirement for me as the leader to be present, attentional and intentional was not daunting or infinite. It was in fact finite and consisted of scores of opportunities to be present, to be listening, to be attentive – to “be there.”

The Egyptian philosopher Ptahhotep wrote in the 24th century BC, “Those who must listen to the pleas and cries of their people should do so patiently, because the people want attention to what they say even more than the accomplishing for which they came.”

Being there is a privilege bestowed on the leader never to be taken for granted.

There is a greeting among the people of Northern Natal in Africa when they meet someone, make eye contact and resolve to be present: “Sawu Bona – I see you.”

The reply is an equal commitment to attention and intention: “Sikhona – I am here.”

I see you. I am here.

These are perhaps the most important words we can live by for the men and women we have the privilege to lead.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front      https://henryv43.wordpress.com/

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April 25, 2017 · 9:21 am

First person, singular.

When I was a fellow one of the senior physicians at the children’s hospital where I trained approached me with a question:

“Dr. Callahan,” (she was always pretty formal). “Does your colleague Dr. Christopher have his own lab?”

“No ma’am” I replied (formal, too). “He works in the same labs we all do. Why do you ask?”

“Well in speaking with him he often refers to ‘his lab’ and I was just wondering whether the fellows actually had their own labs.”

We didn’t. I started to listen more carefully and noticed that Dr. Christopher (not his real name) had a tendency that afflicts many in leadership: the over-use of the first person (“I, me, my”). I acknowledge it is nowhere near as grating as referring to oneself in the third person (“Bo Jackson has to do what’s best for Bo Jackson”). But it is something I have noticed through the years, possibly a function of my own fear that I might sometimes lean in the same direction. Certainly positions of leadership can foster that way of thinking. People pay a great deal of attention to leaders wherever and whatever they are doing. They even notice and may comment on what the leader’s wearing (“Sir, I notice you wear Tom’s”). Perhaps that is why General George Patton said that leadership was theater. The leader is always on stage.

But it is too easy to succumb to the cult of the first person and increasingly cast our shadow over all we’re associated with: my team, my assistant, my hospital, my staff, my directorate, my lab. Pay attention to your own patterns of speech and see how many times you refer to yourself.

It would only be a bad habit if it weren’t for one thing. We may have bought into the traditional “heroic” model of leadership. The model is common in ancient literature. Leaders were known for their physical size, strength, or looks; individual personality traits or charisma. For example in Homer’s epic poem Achilles was a leader because of his demigod warrior status, Ajax as a result of his size and strength, and Hector because of his courage and dedication to his people. Early leadership theory focused on the leader and the leader’s persona.

Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle wrote in his book (the title is telling): On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in history (1840), “For as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at the bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.” His emphasis on the individual leader gave rise to the “Great Man” theory of leadership.

The problem is that we have entered an era of horizontal leadership where the best leaders are the best listeners; they are willing to relinquish power to accomplish goals, have the greatest ability to form and facilitate teams, and have the greatest emotional intelligence. The sun is setting on the great person theory (the traditional messianic or apocalyptic view we hold towards the occupant of the White House seems to be a persistent exception).

We should check ourselves. Excessive use of first person pronouns may reveal a tendency toward seeing ourselves in the “great man” or “great woman” spot light, to the potential detriment of our relationships with peers and subordinates who comprise the teams who really do the work.

The leader without a crowd following him; traveling and working with him, is simply taking a walk. We can too easily end up thinking “first person, singular” when we need the entire team – “first person, plural” – to get the job done.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front      https://henryv43.wordpress.com/

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February 13, 2017 · 6:24 am

The sound of the guns

I probably shouldn’t look at social media during church. But honestly, I was just opening the Bible App on my phone (!) The local “Nextdoor” link on my email was a post from someone living nearby: “Neighborhood too dangerous.” The author wrote, “We were talking about how annoying it is that we cannot walk outside without fear of being held up at gunpoint and it might be time to move to a safer place…”

It has been something of a bad week for our neighborhood. Someone was held up and robbed on the street I walk to work and a young man was shot a few blocks from our home. But none of this is new to West Baltimore or to the city where more than three dozen people have been killed since New Years. Perhaps it was just a little too close to home.

The post made me think of our pastor.

He was born and raised in Baltimore and despite growing up in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods in a single parent home he has a college degree and is among the best read men I know. He had every reason and every opportunity to move away from the conditions in a city that Hobbes would likely agree are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

But he didn’t leave. Instead he studied, trained and prayed and with his wife planted a church in West Baltimore within a mile of the highest density of gun violence in the city. He was with the line of pastors at the uprising after the events surrounding the death of Freddie Gray two years ago this spring. He leads by example in the city of his birth that he could easily and justifiable have left behind.

This morning I was stuck by what drew me to his leadership and to this church.

We spent thirty years in the Army where among the highest virtues was the willingness to run toward the sound of the guns.

Now we are serving with this leader and these brothers and sisters who have chosen to do the exact same thing – literally and figuratively – on some of our nation’s most dangerous streets.

A couple commented at a dinner recently that it is not uncommon in our neighborhood to hear gunshots at night. These men and women whose church meets in a local public school; who are led by a courageous pastor and his wife are far more familiar with the sound than we are.

Perhaps I am drawn to this leader by the same qualities I have long recognized in those with whom I served in uniform:

True leaders run toward the sound of the guns.

We have found a community and leaders who live this.

And it feels a lot like home.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front      https://henryv43.wordpress.com/

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