Everyone has the potential to be a leader. Making tough decisions is part of the job description. Learn from your team. Those were just a few insights provided by a group of six 2023 McKnight’s Women of Distinction honorees during an education session at the Women of Distinction Forum on Monday. McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Senior Editor Kimberly Marselas moderated the discussion.
Leadership is not a rare quality, Elara Caring Skilled Home Health President Kimberly Nystrom, a Hall of Honor inductee, offered during the discussion, which was entitled “Traits of a successful long-term care leader.”
“Everybody has leadership inside of them. It has to be observed or apparent. It could be yourself taking that move, or somebody notices it in you,” she said before a packed audience at the JW Marriott Chicago. “Many folks that I’ve seen over the years never, ever thought they could be leaders. I’m of the belief that many leaders are out there and they just need to be given the confidence.”
Making tough decisions separates a leader from a follower, noted Clement Manor Campus Administrator Carly Loewus, who stepped into her role during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Healthcare is not black and white, and there was so much gray area, especially going into pandemic, when nobody else had answers,” said Loewus, a Rising Star. “You might make a decision that is not the norm, but it aligns with your morals and values.”
One tough decision her location made early on, she said, was mandating the COVID-19 vaccine — and being one of the first facilities in the state to do so.
“It was not the most popular decision, but you’re making those decisions in those gray areas probably more often than your black-and-white ones,” she said.
Given the stressful nature of their jobs, the panelists also discussed self care and maintaining a balance between their personal and professional lives. For Rising Star Katie Gallenstein, market leader of Help at Home, taking time out of her day to meet face-to-face with patients is a welcome respite from her daily duties.
“For me personally or my leaders that aren’t directly caring for clients and patients, it’s to visit a patient, hear their story and find out about what they’ve been through or how you’re helping them or us,” she said, adding, “It really reinvigorates you, and you remember who you are serving.”
Being grateful is a skill that WelbeHealth Director of Strategy and Special Projects Sophia Guel-Valenzuela said she learned from her mentor. She now invests her time in mentoring others who are women of color like herself. Doing so also allowed her to make lasting connections that go beyond work, she said.
“My manager as an intern gave me a gift of a beautiful journal [with] 365 pages,” said Guel-Valenzuela, a Veteran VIP honoree. “She says, ‘While you’re here, I want you to do gratitude. You can write your to-do list, but I want you to be grateful for something every day.’
“When people give you advice, build and build on it,” Guel-Valenzuela continued. “I’m grateful for those women in my life. I’ve been working 31 years. I started working when I was 12, and I have a long way to go.”
Sometimes the roles are reversed, and a person can learn a lot from his or her employees, said Help at Home Chicago Director of Operations Rose Trevino, a Rising Star.
“I lean on [my team] all the time to talk through [a] situation, to give me advice and work together,” she said.
As Sanford Hospice Administrator and Rising Star Desirae Toomey pointed out, a one-size-fits-all approach to leadership does not exist. There are a multitude of styles. Leadership is not always talking the loudest; sometimes it manifests itself in subtle ways, she said.
“One of the really cool things about the organization that I work for now is we have so many leaders that lead in different ways,” Toomey said. “When I started my leadership career, I was definitely more quiet. I feel like no matter if they are a supervisor … if they’re an employee providing patient care or if there’s someone else up the chain of command, they all teach me a little bit, and I think that every day there’s a lot of listening, lots of learning from every little interaction that we get an opportunity to take.”
