Paul Levy free essay sample

Paul Levy’s strong transformational leadership style facilitated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) from ailing to thriving. The organization faced many dire issues including financial crisis, poor quality of patient care, and low staff morale. This grim outlook required a strong transformational leader. Levy displayed all the characteristics of a powerful and effective leader by embracing intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, and charisma which enabled him to lead them through the crisis. Levy was able to inspire the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center staff by clearly presenting the hospitals challenges and seeking out different viewpoints to solve them. He was able to intellectually stimulate the employees which served to enlighten and motivate them to save the medical center. Levy demonstrated this fundamental characteristic very clearly during the first month of his tenure by posting the Hunter Report to the company intranet.The Hunter report was an outside consultant’s objective overview of the medical centers financial status. By posting it to the website he encouraged intellectual thought about the current state of the BIDMC from all levels of the team. Managements openness was rewarded as over 300 email responses were received, with each being reviewed by senior management and responded to directly by Levy. He was able to gain the employees trust by being open to suggestions and by demonstrating that he was in touch with the real issues plaguing the medical center. By promoting a culture of intellectual stimulation at BIDMC, Levy was able to begin creating an engaged workface and start solidifying himself as a leader the staff could trust and support. People in an organization need to feel like they are important and Levy does a great job through his idea of core values where he focuses on individual consideration. He assesses what the people in the organization value and adjusts his strategy around those core values. This will result in natural teamwork, cohesion and overall, buy in.Levy believes that the job of the CEO is to survey employees, understand what is important to them and build your business plan around those values. This helps support and develops followers to improve self-confidence and a desire to improve performance. â€Å"When you have a team that believes in themselves, you can achieve so much more than your average organization. † Levy believes in the CEO as a teacher, he motivates his management team in improving decision making and accountability, an example is the discharging of patients which were being seen as a bottleneck (getting people who are well to leave the hospital).The Department of Medicine was responsible for coming up with a plan to resolve the issue, and had yet to take action in implementing their new plan. Levy addressed this in a staff meeting, direct at the head of the Department, in front of everyone. He said that in order to get anything done, you need a champion, periodic reporting, and corrective actions. This put peer pressure on the Department of Medicine to produce results, singling them out as aware of an issue although they had not yet taken action.This is a lesson on how to organize things to get things done. He was also motivating other to follow suit and start implementing improvements in their departments. Charismatic leaders are able to inspire emotion and passion in their followers by being optimistic and enthusiastic. Without passionate and emotional employees, an organization will be crippled and unable to face upcoming challenges. When followers are able to identify with their leader, the followers become more motivated and strive to do their best.While doing all this, charismatic leaders are able to display great confidence in the organization’s ability to solve current and future challenges. Levy displayed many traits of a charismatic leader throughout his time at the BIDMC. Levy first action upon arriving at the hospital was to send an email to every employee at BIDMC explaining the current predicament. Though the situation at BIDMC was dire, Levy kept a positive tone to the email; he stated from the start that failure was not an option since privatization of the hospital would be detrimental to everyone. After 150 people were laid off, Levy sent out a â€Å"healing message† to the staff. He knew that people were hurting, but soon things would improve. Levy needed to show he understood their loss of friends and coworkers, but also provide an uplifting message that in the next couple days a recovery plan would be released and things would begin to look up. Levy’s outlook, coupled with a win by the Patriots, instilled the belief that â€Å"if the Patriots can do it, we can too. When dealing with a â€Å"whiny† email form a hospital director, Levy demonstrated his confidence by carbon copying his response to the entire department. The Cc’d email also served to call out this director’s bad behavior in real time, inspiring him to live up to the organization’s values. Levy was guided by values that focused on doing what’s right for the organization, as he lead BIDMC back on the road to financial strength. Throughout he remained transparent to the staff, by sharing the Hunter Report BIDMC’s recovery plan.Taking suggestions from staff and personally responding to each email. Levy acted as both coach and cheerleader to the organization, by encouraging staff members to take risks as well as asking questions others would not think to ask. He motivated BIDMC staff to continuously evolve and find innovative solutions to the organization’s problems. Levy was able to remain optimistic about the medical center’s future, and inspire passion and emotion in the staff. Levy embodies many of the characteristics of a transformative leader, and played a crucial role in saving the BIDMC.