Assignment task: Describe Kernaghan's leadership style.
Leadership Background
In 2010, Kernaghan was appointed president and chief executive officer of St. Joseph's. She assumed this role after having served as vice-president for various hospitals in the London area. In her capacity as vice-president, she had led various successful restructuring efforts that were a catalyst for sustainable change in those hospitals within the local health care system. Before assuming this role, Kernaghan had served for many years as a family physician after graduating from Western University in 1984. She also raised three boys while running her practice in collaboration with her spouse of over 39 years.
Kernaghan believed in the importance of spending personal leisure time with her family and took part in various leisure activities such as skiing, kayaking, biking, hiking, and scuba diving. She understood and emphasized the benefits of unwinding in the great outdoors and maintaining worklife balance through recreational activities. She believed that holding a successful executive career should not mean having to sacrifice time spent with family or being a mother and a working spouse. As a values-based leader, Kernaghan took her allotted vacation time to enjoy with her family members and set aside appropriate time to attend to family commitments. In her experience, she had found that other workers in similar positions of executive leadership did not seem to place the same level of importance on family.
Kernaghan had a passion for integrated care, performance excellence, and leadership. She shared her knowledge through several public speaking engagements. She also provided leadership development courses across the country, with a focus on crucial conversations and accountability. She viewed her efforts as an important foundation in relationships and leadership. She believed in the value of being a role model for the concept of "servant leadership," which maintained that the leader should be a servant first. Kernaghan saw leadership as a privilege that allowed her to develop and excel based on her strengths. She received various awards for her noteworthy leadership accomplishments, including the Canadian Society of Physician Leaders Excellence in Medical Leadership Award and the YMCA Women of Excellence Award in Health, Science & Technology. As an active volunteer, Kernaghan had served as a member of many national, regional, and provincial boards and committees. She always set aside time in her schedule to support such commitments.
Kernaghan's leadership style and passion for exemplary care influenced the organization's vision: "To earn complete confidence in the care we provide." She believed in the critical imperative to "walk the talk" and be a role model for integrity and authentic leadership. She was a strong advocate for people being true to themselves, finding their own voice, and ensuring that their voice was heard. Kernaghan reinforced to her team the importance of congruent words and actions, with clear intent for all actions taken. She promoted the importance of being reflective, particularly in advance of stepping into challenging work or scenarios. She often reminded her team members that leadership could be demonstrated from any position and stressed a "we" rather than "me" approach. She saw leadership as a journey of building capability with time and experience.
Kernaghan felt privileged to work in an organization that had values aligned with her own. She believed that these values enabled her and her team members to work together to serve others. She strove to ensure that St. Joseph's values were demonstrated through her actions and decisions. She ensured that the organization's recruitment efforts included an assessment of values for potential candidates to help identify a suitable fit within the organization. She made it imperative for her team members to respect and publicly support the values and ethics of the organization. Those values were woven into the orientation process and performance evaluations of staff members, reinforcing the importance of integrating the values into their work. Individual and collective performance was measured in relation to the organization's values. As validated by accreditation surveyors, St. Joseph's demonstrated evidence of being true to its values. Team members were frequently reminded of the importance to being true to one's values and were advised to lean on the organization's values to inform their actions and decisions when faced with issues.
Kernaghan believed that leaders should be able to live with uncertainty, set the direction for the future, and have the courage to advance the necessary actions for a desired future state. These qualities were critical to the organization's success. It was imperative, she felt, to use principles as a guide for implementation of change strategies, in alignment with the organization's long-term vision. She acknowledged the key role that teams played in this process, and how important it was to draw upon the team's strengths to mobilize change. Leaders had to demonstrate effective listening, she believed, to integrate all input collected into strategic actions. However, she understood the importance of resisting the urge to act too quickly to find solutions. She favoured an approach that considered the longer-term view for change.