- Listening Builds Agile, Aligned Cultures
- Chapters Recognized for Accomplishments in Engagement
- Purpose Can Transform Your Organization
- Preparing to Lead Sustainable Change
- Call for Proposals: Management Innovations Poster Session
Listening Builds Agile, Aligned Cultures
Evaluating performance often involves data and measurements—staffing ratios, safety scores, compliance reports, dashboards and financial targets. Organizational challenges, however, often pop up in subtler forms such as missed feedback loops and unspoken misalignment.
“What distinguishes great healthcare leaders isn’t just their ability to act—it’s their ability to notice. And, more importantly, to listen when silence is trying to speak,” writes Jose R. Edwards, FACHE, assistant vice president of facilities, Cooper University Health Care, in the September/October edition of Healthcare Executive.
Clarity gaps between strategy and behavior often form because of the natural pressure in fast-paced environments, and intentional leadership is required to realign priorities. Edwards points out that “one simple but powerful leadership approach can help executives at every level move from awareness to action: Notice. Invite. Reinforce.”
This practice creates success because the discipline of noticing is relevant to every healthcare role, and it builds cultures that are alert, agile and aligned. “The greatest threats to leadership are found in “what goes unspoken: the question that didn’t get asked, the idea someone hesitated to share or the concern that was silently rationalized,” says Edwards. “And while not everything needs to be said, more needs to be heard. Because what goes unnoticed doesn’t go away. It just waits—until it can’t be ignored.”
Read more at “When Silence Speaks.”
Chapters Recognized for Accomplishments in Engagement
ACHE chapters in New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana and California were honored recently for their accomplishments in engagement.
Annually, each Regent-at-Large in districts 1–5 bestows the Award for Chapter Accomplishments in Engagement to a chapter that actively demonstrates a commitment to and successful execution of significant efforts that grow ACHE’s community.
The following recipients were recognized during the Chapter Leaders Conference, held in Chicago, Sept. 14–15:
- District 1: Healthcare Leaders of New York
- District 2: American College of Healthcare Executives of Greater Charlotte
- District 3: ACHE of Greater Ohio
- District 4: ACHE of Louisiana
- District 5: California Association of Healthcare Leaders
Thank you to all the chapters who are creating equal opportunities for all leaders to learn and network, leading to a higher level of engagement with ACHE, the chapter, the community and the field of healthcare management.
Organizational Learning Opportunity
Purpose Can Transform Your Organization
With employees’ attitudes toward work changing and a shortage of talent, a new dynamic is taking shape in the healthcare workforce, creating a sense of urgency. Employees are looking for empowerment and purpose. Author Kevin J. Joseph, MD, FACHE, former market chief clinical officer, Ascension Healthcare, believes healthcare leaders need to adapt to the changing needs of their teams, and says, “There’s never been a more pressing need for leadership training.”
During his successful tenure as president/CEO, West Chester Hospital, Joseph led the hospital to the top 10th percentile in the U.S. for safety and quality and the top 5th percentile for patient experience. He now offers tools to improve organizational health that include increasing accountability and modifying leadership priorities to improve culture, patient outcomes and financial strength. Joseph recommends prioritizing cultural fit over skills when interviewing candidates and aims to inspire all employees to change their perceptions of themselves, their roles and their relationships with patients.
Joseph is a faculty member with ACHE’s Customized Learning for Organizations. Ask your organization about bringing a customizable learning seminar to your leadership team. Offered both in-person and virtually at hospitals and health systems across the country, ACHE customized learning equips leaders and teams with practical tools to elevate performance and drive change.
For more information, visit Customized Learning for Organizations or email organizations@ache.org
Preparing to Lead Sustainable Change
When today’s aspiring executives are asked to lead, they will encounter challenges that few managers in other fields face, according to authors of Public and Population Health Perspectives for Health Systems Management (Learn, 2025).
“The public health system is broader than public health departments, and managers of health systems are accountable for the design of interventions that improve the health of populations external and internal to those systems,” write authors Kee Chan, PhD, and Richard H. Sewell.
Chan and Sewell aim to engage the next generation of healthcare executives and prepare them to lead in diverse and dynamic health environments. Rooted in cutting-edge frameworks like design and systems thinking, this first-edition textbook bridges theory and practice, empowering readers to effectively address complex challenges in public and population health management.
“Design thinking used in education and in public health will create a new generation of problem-solvers who are empathetic and engaged in solving complex public health problems and who manage and lead change that can create a sustainable and long-lasting impact,” write the authors.
The three sections in this book cover public-population health, management and applied perspectives that will benefit classroom instruction and aspiring leaders. Learn more here.
Call for Proposals: Management Innovations Poster Session
Authors are invited to submit an abstract of their posters for consideration for the 41st Annual Management Innovations Poster Session to be held at the 2026 Congress on Healthcare Leadership in Houston, March 2–4. This is a great opportunity for authors to showcase the innovative work happening at their organizations with other healthcare leaders.
Submissions should focus on innovations that demonstrate significant advancements and impactful strategies in care delivery environments, promoting access and improved patient outcomes. These innovations should fall into one of the following four categories: AI and Technology, Rural and Critical Access Hospitals, Safety and Quality, and Workforce and Care Redesign.
Visit Congress Poster Session for the full selection criteria. Abstracts should be submitted by Oct. 31.