The Top Ten Competencies of a Highly Effective Home Care Leader

Today's article is a republication of a story by Stephen Tweed from Leading Home Care (www.leadinghomecare.com).  The story ran in their May 16th email news letter and as described below, it is part of the training that Stephen presents in their Academy for Home Care Leadership.  The title is reminiscent of one of the management books I read early in my career, entitled The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (originally released in 1989 by Stephen Covey.  I guess the expression "Great Stephens think alike" holds here (or maybe that was "great minds"). 

The Top Ten Competencies of a Highly Effective Home Care Leader

I was on the phone today with the Vice President of Business Development for anew client of ours in Canada.  The company has engaged me to speak for their annual conference in the fall, and we were talking about the two presentations I will be making.  The opening general session will be our newest program, “Serving More Patients”, based on the results of our home health, hospice, and private duty sales and marketing survey.

The second presentation will be a leadership track from our Academy for Home Care Leadership.  I was describing the Top Ten Competencies of a Highly Effective Home Care Leader.  My colleague asked me to tell him more about the ten competencies.  I listed them:

1.  Seeing the Bigger Picture

2.  Communicating Expectations and Directions

3.  Making Decisions

4.  Coaching and Counseling

5.  Setting Priorities and Managing Time

6.  Planning

7.  Recruiting and Selecting Good People

8.  Measuring and Managing Team Performance

9.  Inspiring others to follow you

10. Solving Problems

He asked me how we arrived at the top ten, and how we would present this information to their conference participants.  I described the research we did, starting back in 1997 where we surveyed 200 home care CEOs across the country.  Then we conducted interviews and focus groups, and narrowed the results down to our top ten list.  Then we conducted further research into exactly what each of those competencies means in home health care and hospice. 

In our survey, we found that the CEOs who responded felt that the first three … seeing the bigger picture, communicating expectations and directions, and making decisions … are most important by a significant margin.  In our workshops, we present all ten top competencies, and then focus on a few depending on the time available.  In a one hour conference breakout, we’ll have time to go in depth into the top three. 

If you would like more information on the Top Ten Competencies, you can order a copy of our Academy for Home Care Leadership Learning Guide.