Authentic Healthcare Leadership ― A Practical Handbook

Authentic leadership is an approach to leadership that emphasizes building the leader’s legitimacy through honest relationships with followers which value their input and are built on an ethical foundation. By building trust and generating enthusiastic support from their subordinates, authentic leaders are able to improve individual and team performance. Many scholars and practitioners of authentic leadership say that the number one quality of an authentic leader is self-awareness. Self-aware leaders are transformational. Armed with self-awareness they build engaging, cooperative teams. How to gain and sustain self-awareness is the focus of the book. This book addresses current leadership challenges in health care and gives leaders guidelines for finding, living and sharing their authentic voice at home and at work. It is a much needed handbook to give current leaders perspective and practical tips to being more authentic, communicating more effectively while building engaging rapport across the organization.

Additionally, a focus of the book is patient satisfaction. With a focus on nurse and physician leadership, this book provides new perspectives and action plans to increase patient satisfaction through communication that speaks to the needs of the patient in authentic and engaging ways.

Norma Hollis is a human development consultant, trainer, coach and entrepreneur who has directed large non-profits, consulted at Fortune 500 companies, coached C-suite executives, and written programs for creating engaging organizational cultures and developing authentic leaders. In her first career Norma advocated human development by directing large urban child care centers. In her second career she operated a speakers bureau and helped speakers share important messages with the world. Now in her third career she is an authenticity expert, developing authentic leaders and assisting organizations to increase their human service objectives through improved communication and leadership skills. She has a BS in Child and Family Services and an MA is Education Administration.

Norma’s interest in the medical community began in her childhood as daughter of a dentist whose family was an important part of the black medical community in Detroit, MI. As a consultant in her early career, she worked with multiple medical practices to strengthen practices, train boards of directors and market within the strict guidelines of the time. Now she certifies people as speakers and coaches for her authenticity process. Three of her certified coaches are nurses and have encouraged her to expand her process to the medical community. One has delivered the process on multiple occasions to the military hospital in San Antonio, TX. Another has booked Norma as a retreat speaker for the executive nurse alumni from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation.