Oak Valley Hospital District Review
“Everything in life brings risk. It’s true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don’t try anything new.”
As a manager of the Emergency Department and ICU at Oak Valley Hospital, I was also responsible for the EMS Liaison responsibilities as well as the disaster coordinator. This was my first role in a position of leadership, and it was a profound learning experience. I had journaled and thought a lot about the kind of leader I think I could be. Thinkers like Zig Zigler, Simon Sinek, Seth Godin and John Maxwell have been rolling around in my mind for a decade before I was granted this post, and I was excited to try and implement what I had learned.
As anyone involved in leadership or politics can relate, the situation of why I gave my resignation fifteen months after accepting the position is complex and to some degree delicate. The official reason, and honestly the biggest factor, was that the job required me to be at work five or six days a week, and due to staffing standards beyond my control our ICU was short staffed every week. The added responsibility to cover shifts, manage two departments, and attend county level meetings for EMS and Disaster all culminated into a role that was bigger then what I was prepared for. The reasons why this burden became too much for me is because I was not a good enough leader to be successful in that position, and I did not have the administrative leadership support to develop into a better manager. With the impending birth of my first daughter, I sought employment that was more predictable and less stressful so that I could be a better husband and grow into a good father.
Upon my leaving, I developed a survey which I gave to all my staff and anyone I could think of. I did not provide it to my direct supervisor because in previous conversations I was told that I was not allowed to survey my staff with regard to employee satisfaction. I expected my supervisors involvement would have created more issues for staff who wanted to give feed back. I needed this mirror to reflect how I performed, and to make a plan regarding my future as a leader after such a challenging time.
The questions I chose may not be the best questions, especially if you are a statistical analysis expert. However I felt that given my limited experience and limited time to put this together, I gave it my best shot. I have provided below all the responses from the survey as a way of closing the chapter of my manager role and to serve as a decision point as I consider the kind of growth I need to become better leader in the future.
These Questions refer to the demographics of the respondents.
These Questions refer to manager skills.
List 3 words that describe Eric:
This is a word cloud that represents the responses. The size correlates with the frequency of responses that had this answer. Click image for a larger view.
What were Eric’s strengths as a manager?
What were Eric’s weaknesses as a manager?
Please share a time when Eric Surprised or impressed you as a leader.
Please share a time when Eric disappointed you as a leader.
Please provide any other feedback that you think would have helped Eric be better in his role as a manager.
