Thoughts about leadership

Thoughts about leadership

By: Craig Dresang, CEO, YoloCares

 

During the last few months, I have had good reason to reflect on my years in leadership.

My YoloCares team secretly nominated me as one of the Sacramento region’s Most Admired CEOs.  At first, I felt embarrassed.  Like many organizational heads, the things I notice most are my deficiencies, mishaps, and shortcomings. So, for me, this has been an exercise in humility.  I am keenly aware that any leader is only as good as the team that surrounds them.  A stand-alone leader is no leader at all.

After being notified that I was indeed selected as one of 20 awardees, all I could think of is that the work I do at YoloCares is not for recognition or accolades.  No award needed.  It is only and always about the care we design and deliver for our patients and families . . .   and the ways we can support communities across six counties.  I have since moved on to a place of gratitude for my team’s vote of confidence and for their unified support for our shared vision and mission.  As a group, they are some of the most intelligent, thoughtful, collaborative, and experienced teams I have worked with during my 35 years in leadership. As human beings, they are all top-shelf individuals who I would seek out as close friends if they did not report to me.

One of my earliest mentors was a Franciscan nun named Sister Anne Dresang.  She was my aunt.  Four feet, ten inches tall.  A reserved and understated force of nature.  We were not especially close when I was younger, but during my time in seminary and early in my career, we kibitzed frequently about the state of the world, and the role that both healthcare and education could play in making the planet a more just and compassionate place.  While I was living in Chicago, Sister Anne would frequently visit during her trips to the Mother House in Wheaton . . .  just 20 minutes from my house.  There were many nights when I would have her over for dinner and we would get so lost in conversation that I would have to drive her back to the Franciscan Mother House at midnight.

Sister Anne spent her life trying to improve healthcare in her community of Appleton, WI.  She received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in nursing from Marquette University College of Nursing in Milwaukee.  For more than four decades she lived in the convent on the third floor of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, the hospital where I was born and where my mother died 30 years later.  Among the many titles she held during her tenure at Saint Elizabeth’s, was chair of the capital campaign to build a new hospital wing.  As a result of her leadership and ability to garner financial support, the campaign wrapped up two years early and construction began for the hospital’s expansion ahead of schedule.

After reflecting on my own leadership journey, I now realize that much of Sister Anne’s wisdom, counsel, and spirit has seeped into my management style and philosophy. She used to say, “Nuns get it done.”  She was right, and I would do well to follow in her habit.  For those in leadership, or wish to be, I offer my own lessons from a Franciscan nun who was a quiet, understated leader:

• Integrity is your most powerful asset. What you say and what you do must be aligned.
• Find work that makes your heart sing and run with it.
• Do not over-complicate issues or problems. The simplest solution is usually the best.
• You will make mistakes, so own them. And then move on.
• Enjoy the journey. The path you are on is your path.  Claim it. Have fun with it.  Then let it go at the end of the day.
• Do not rush to judgement on any situation. As a difficult problem or challenge emerges, there will always be more that you do not know, than you do know.
• Do not borrow trouble. You can only address what is in front of you today.  Don’t worry about problems that have not yet happened.
• Rumi, the famous Islamic scholar, said “The past and the future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire.”
• No margin, no mission. A lofty mission is of no use if you cannot generate a profit margin to sustain your work.

Little did I know when we were having our many late-night conversations, trying to solve the world’s problems, that a tiny nun’s insight would influence my decades-long career.  As I look back on those times of connection, and the notes I wrote down in the now yellowed pages of my journal, I realize that any accomplishments I have garnered have come through the gifts of others, and to them I am immensely grateful.