Collaborative Leadership: A New Model for Developing Truly Effective Relationships Between CEOs and Trustees
© Center for Healthcare Governance, 2006
By David A. Bjork
Introduction
The effort to strengthen governance and make boards more accountable is paying off. Many non-profit hospitals and health systems have voluntarily adopted reforms required of for-profit firms and, as a result, their boards are feeling newly invigorated. They now expect to exercise more control and be more engaged in making decisions than they have been previously. This poses a challenge for you, as the CEO, since it amounts to a significant change in your relationship with your board. This relationship is critical, and always entails a certain amount of risk. It tends to be defined in terms of the boundaries between governance and management, and any change in the level of the board’s engagement unsettles whatever balance has been established between the board and the CEO.
Collaborative Leadership: A New Model For Developing Truly Effective Relationships Between CEOs and Trustees is the first in a series of tools developed specifically for you, the hospital or health system CEO, to help you take the lead in dealing with this change in ways that will stabilize and strengthen relationships with your board.