By: Joel Luedke
Embarking in more learning about leadership and all the different thoughts on philosophies have brought up a lot of different ideas about how those things might be applied to health and wellness. There have been a lot of theories on leadership throughout the past one hundred years and recently the focus has been on being more transformational. A transformational leader is one who's focus is on the follow. Motivating followers, helping them fulfill their dreams and potentials are some of the major focuses of a transformational leader. An ability to be and remain intrinsically motivated is also a key trait of transformational leadership.
How does this apply to health and fitness?
I believe for people to be effective in the health, fitness, and medical professions you have to be remain transformational. Information is being generated too quickly to be stuck in old ways that no longer seem to have the effect they were once thought to. In order to remain at the top of your game (which I believe all practitioners should) you have to be intrinsically motivated in order to go comb through all the research and find what the next thing is that can benefit your patients. Failure to do can present major costs. Not only will you potentially fall behind, how you are able to care for and service your patients will decline. Obviously this isn't a good thing.
Leaders within these areas also must be transformational and encourage their employees to go out and challenge themselves. Depending on the situation, a leader may not want others to pass them up in terms of knowledge and skills. This is short sighted and will hold the employees and the organization back from achieving its potential. A leader must embrace the paths their employees want to go and actively help them achieve their goals within the framework of the organization or department.
How can this be accomplished?
Go out and challenge yourself. Don't settle for what your comfort is but seek out disconfirming information. Doing so can provide benefits from two ends. One, it can reconfirm what you do if the information/evidence isn't enough to change your mind. Two, it can help set you on a new path to something that could be better or at least enhance your current practice. A person can accomplish this through multiple avenues. Continuing education outside of comfort zones or just going deep in the literature and finding out if what you've been told is truly the best option for what you are trying to accomplish.
Keep transforming. Don't change for changes sake but don't sit idle because you might be worried what you find on the other side.
No comments:
Post a Comment