Abstract
The paper looks into need of leadership capabilities and their importance in the public health system. The leader of the public health organizational should understands the importance of vision so as to improve the volume of the organization, delivering quality programs and services. The public health organization needs of a leader and the skills required, as well as, the challenges faced are looked into.
Introduction
There is a strong need to ensure that the present health system carry the potential to generate great solutions. It has been found that every organization is limited by its resources and financial energy. The Health care systems today bear with tremendous financial pressures and need an able and strong leadership to increase system efficiency and reduce costs. Performance change and sustainable learning system is essential to improve the value in healthcare. The health care system is made of researchers, patients, clinicians, product manufacturers, government, employers, etc.
The concern centers on the need of developing a system of education for health professionals that are separate from the training provided to medical professionals. The graduates of the academic institutions have little or nil exposure to the core public health subjects that need strong leaders at the academic centers and practice community. Finding the right leaders is an important challenge in the field of public health.
There have been many studies and initiatives taken to assess the preparation of the health workforce and leaders that represent many of the components in the field of public health, and the challenges (Miner, Allan, 2014). Many professionals felt the need for public health agencies and continuing education and to place both graduate and undergraduate learners in field experiences. The future leaders and managers within the health care system work with different primary care organizations, community agencies, and corporations.
There are several outcomes based on research and interviews and the essential consensus is that the health workforce not only needs to be up-to-date at the federal, state, and local levels, but needs strong leadership skills to make this happen Ideally, all people would like to lead a high quality life and live in healthy communities. Unfortunately, the reality is far short of these visions and the rising health care costs as well as the growing number of challenges. Such daunting challenges renew the need to leader ship education, leading to cross –cutting competencies that will distinguish the health practitioners of tomorrow. The leadership in the health care system means to stretch your resources in the most unimaginable ways. The leader of a public health organization not only needs to offer fresh insights in those challenges, but also needs to look for innovative ways to solve address them (Koh, 2009). Public healthcare demands a gentle, but firm and steady style of leadership that sets high standards for professionalism and humility. Public health leaders face extraordinary challenges and perhaps the biggest challenge lies in the non-hierarchical structure of the system. A leader in the public health system needs to understand many dimensions, like the distribution of resources, developing a dedicated link with the government, an orientation towards long term prevention, etc. The diversity of perspectives in the system creates value on one hand, while, on the other hand, it may lead to more frequent collision of thoughts and resources. Public health leaders will need political will, as well as, interpersonal skills to handle the vast and diverse group. What the healthcare system relies heavily on is a leaderful organization, where leadership is a mutual, collaborative endeavor. Everyone needs to share a sense of power and responsibility, and where everyone is given freedom and opportunity to help make decisions. Everyone gets a chance to lead in practical terms. Frankly, we find that most health organizations are not leaderful, and it can get difficult to motivate the lower-level managers to take on leadership roles. The different staff members in the health care system have well defined roles and their decision-making responsibility. The potential for ideas, expertise, and leadership still remains untapped among all staff. Leaders and their personality are important, as leaders have followers, who like to go to these leaders with suggestions and complaints, suggestions, and thoughts about activities and direction in the organization (Menkens, Amelio, 2009). The leader should be communicative and inspire others to implement his or her vision that is better for the health care. For the best organizational results, the concrete, practical thinker as well as the abstract visionary thinker should come together in order to lead the organization through a collaborative, leaderful approach.
Core competencies for health professionals reflect skills that are very much desirable to not only deliver the essential public health services, but also lead the organization forward, while facing different challenges. The health professionals and organizations need to work together under the able leadership to better understand and meet workforce development needs. The Core Competencies for health professionals have been loosely divided into different domains, of knowledge and skill. These comprise of analytic skills, communication skills, policy development skills, cultural competency skills, public health sciences skills, financial planning and management skills as well as leadership and systems thinking skills. The public health leaders need to imbibe new skills in the ever expanding, changing and challenging environment. Public health leaders need to be fluent with their staff, colleagues and community partners about the importance of social determinants to the future of health care systems. The core of public health system depends on developing interventions and the right leaders to keep communities healthy. The need of training and development of public health leadership have always been stressed upon. Those leaders are needed, and their skills to support staff and to direct them through transformative times. Clear and consistent arguments need to be developed to lead the current and future changes in the health system. Leaders need to develop partnerships and apply their community organizing skills in all policies. The community part of public health system is gaining importance, and a lot will depend on joint program and strategies that will help reinforce health in all policies. Leaderful organizations encourage transparent communication and collaborative decision making at every stage. The public health leaders need to blend personal humility with professional will to make the right decisions. The big questions remain as to how to recognize those leaders and train in them better to work across boundaries and influence others to take the right course of action. Teaching leadership or the skills are still not common in public health training programs around the world. However, strengthening those skills can make an impact the health of the public in a positive way. Every public health organization should therefore give due importance to the development of leaders at every level of the public healthcare system (Czabanowska, Smith, Stankunas, Avery, 2013). The training of leaders need to be transformative and independent. It has been seen that the best leaders had been those who have experienced pain and transformed the pain successfully into passion.
Study of leadership in public health has brought some facts to the forefront. First, the public health systems affect the lives of us all, and secondly, there is a dire need of public health leaders to promote better health practices. The public health leaders needs to be trained to strengthen the infrastructure of the health systems. The leadership skills can be taught, and the leaders need to put those tools and skills learned into action. The special needs of the public health system can be tackled with the right comprehensive approaches that fall within the paradigms of the health field. (Rowitz, 2014). The health care across the globe has experienced an experienced an explosion in knowledge and applying the new evidence and information can be marred by noteworthy shortcomings, leading to missed opportunities, wastage of resources and harm to patients.
Conclusion
We agree that leader ship is a very vital part of the public healthcare systems, but the assumptions still remain outdated. The leadership and management need to utilize a number of actions and strategies to accelerate change in an organization. Public health professionals need to make use of their past educational experiences and join management as well as leadership skills as they take on administrative responsibilities. Leadership pertains to learning new skills in order to change the overall public health landscape for better. It is much more than a place put at the top of the organizational chart. The public health leaders can influence the health field positively, through the knowledge and many experiences gained through strong public health mentoring. Mentoring allows the continuous education of leadership into the real world. Public health leaders need to prac tice their skills within community settings and are all about multilayered realities of leadership. These leaders can build a much stronger public health system by building risks. We find an increasing need for leadership in the health care system, so as to guide the public health agenda in the ever changing health care system, as well as, know how to face the upcoming challenges. The extent of these shortcomings can be negated by incorporating strong leadership practices and developing strong leaders in the public healthcare system.
References
Miner, K., & Allan, S. (2014). Future of public workforce training: Thought leaders' perspectives. Health Promotion Practice,15(1 Suppl), 10S-13S. doi:10.1177/1524839913519648
Koh, H. K. (2009). Leadership in public health. Journal of Cancer Education, 24(S2), S11-S18. doi:10.1007/BF03182303 Menkens, A. J., & Amelio, R. C. (2009). Leaders and organizations in transition. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice : JPHMP, 15(3), 274. Czabanowska, K., Smith, T., Stankunas, M., Avery, M., & Otok, R. (2013). Transforming public health specialists into public health leaders. The Lancet, 381(9865), 449. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60245-7
Rowitz, Louis (2014).Public Health Leadership- Putting Principles into Practice, University of Illinois at Chicago, Public Health Administration.
