{"id":435,"date":"2024-02-18T21:39:40","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T05:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/?p=435"},"modified":"2024-02-20T13:04:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T21:04:03","slug":"external-scan-how-digital-change-is-addressed-by-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/external-scan-how-digital-change-is-addressed-by-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"External scan: How digital change is addressed by leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Realities of managing and leading change in healthcare<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In preparation for this assignment, I reflected on unit readings, the perspectives offered in the Voices of Leadership audio recordings, discussion in our synchronous sessions, what fellow learners have shared about leading and managing change, and my own experiences with change, past and present. Given that I work in the healthcare sector, I was interested to find the synthesis of theories and models offered by Antwi and Kale (2014). I found this reading reflected the pragmatic realities of leading and managing change in healthcare, specifically, the very slow speed at which change happens, and the high degree of decentralization in health organizations, which can make alignment of purpose and vision all the more challenging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the context of leading a digital learning initiative, I was really pleased to come across the audio interview of Christy Boyce<\/a>, a Virtual Care Learning Consultant with the Fraser Health Authority. I agree with her comments about what the key drivers of adoption of a digital learning initiative are. She emphasizes keeping design as simple as possible to discourage steep learning curves and rejection by users. She also underscored digital literacy and competency among employees in the health care system. I found this point to be exceptionally relevant in my own context, as leading a digital learning initiative (when digital competency is low) has real consequences for even the best-resourced or managed plans. In this aspect, this signals to me that training and upskilling opportunities for employees have to be part of the planning and implementation of a digital learning initiative. Christy Boyce also references the ADKAR model of change management in her interview, and recommends that change initiatives have change management practices embedded early, rather than as an afterthought. This signalled to me a reminder that even though leading a digital learning initiative can be overshadowed by technology, the foundation of a change process still needs rigour and oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The models and theories<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the change models and theories, Antwi and Kale\u2019s review of the literature summed up the most common elements that appear in healthcare change initiatives. These are: environmental circumstances, power dynamics, organizational harmony, organizational capacity, nature of change, and process of change. When I reviewed these elements, I could relate to my own experiences in healthcare. In particular, in recent years, when health human resource shortages have depleted organizational capacity in many ways, the appetite for change among employees can have significant influence on the success of a change initiative. Thus, any digital learning initiative in health must have some way to mitigate the change fatigue that is already high in our organizations. Further, in this same reading, I found the description of Lewin\u2019s three-step model for change to be very salient in the context of introducing and sustaining a digital initiative in healthcare. This sector is not known for being particularly agile, nor does it embrace risk, for obvious reasons. Introducing change (especially when it involves disruption, learning new skills, and abandoning familiar practices), requires approaches that address group dynamics in order to gain momentum to start and sustain a change. I relate to this model, in the context of a digital learning initiative in healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about the leaders?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As for the role of leaders in change, two articles, respectively, capture some key findings that reflect how I see the role of leaders in a digital learning initiative. Khan (2017) states that \u201cadaptive leadership challenges beliefs, values, and norms\u201d and that \u201cit creates follower motivation\u201d. These are key facets in leading any change, but especially in a digital learning context, a leader must have not only subject matter credibility, but also a skill with inspiring a vision that is attractive and inspirational. Similarly, O\u2019Toole (2008) writes that in reviewing a number of historical leaders who have common and unique leadership characteristics, the attribute that is most salient is that their actions \u201care based on helping their followers realize their true needs\u201d. These are the hallmarks of skilled leaders who understand the drivers \u2013 and sustainment \u2013 of change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much to choose from, and yet…<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

During this time I have been struck by how varied and diverse the approaches are to leading and managing change \u2013 reactive vs. proactive, top-down vs. bottom-up, taking into account user experience and feedback vs. non-negotiable directives from domain experts, and iterative approaches vs. waterfall methodology. It\u2019s clear from the readings that change management and leadership theories abound in the literature. They are even written for specific contexts and sectors such as higher education and healthcare. Yet in our conversations in this course, we all seem to be able to offer at least one personal experience of living through (or even being responsible for) a work-related change that could have greatly benefitted from some change management methodology, and\/or transformational leadership. I\u2019m interested to see if by the end of the course, if any of us feel more confident about our own understanding and application of leading and managing change in a digital learning context \u2013 I hope so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antwi, M., & Kale, M. (2014). Change management in healthcare: literature review. Monieson Centre for Business Research in Healthcare, Queen\u2019s University, Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Electronic Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boyce, Christy. (n.d.). Voices of Leadership. Royal Roads University. https:\/\/malat-coursesite.royalroads.ca\/lrnt525\/schedule\/voices\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or transactional leadership in current higher education: A brief comparison. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning<\/em>, 18<\/em>(3), 178-183.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O’Toole, J. (2008). Notes toward a definition of values-based leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership<\/em>, 1<\/em>(1), 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Realities of managing and leading change in healthcare In preparation for this assignment, I reflected on unit readings, the perspectives offered in the Voices of Leadership audio recordings, discussion in our synchronous sessions, what fellow learners have shared about leading and managing change, and my own experiences with change, past and present. Given that I … Continue reading External scan: How digital change is addressed by leaders<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":304,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525","tag-diagram-noting-models-of-change-and-roles-of-leaders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}