← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Rob Kollin on Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and Developing Future Public Health Leaders
00:20:12
Loading summary
Transcript17 lines
- [00:02]
A
This is where health insurance leadership comes together. Becker's 4th Annual Spring Payer Issues Roundtable brings together over 400 payer and health plan executives and more than 100 speakers to Chicago, April 13th and 14th. This year's event includes keynote conversations with the industry's top leaders and former President George W. Bush. For the full agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalreview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you here in Chicago.
- [00:34]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant professor. We're joined today by Professor Robert Collin and Dr. Cowan. Robert Collin teaches leadership. He teaches in the Master's of Public Health program. He'll tell us more. We're going to talk about trends, about leadership. Body's watching. Robert, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a bit about you and what you do?
- [01:00]
C
Awesome. Well, Scott, thanks for having me. Super thrilled to be here and thanks for the kind compliment. So from an introduction and a little bit about what I do, you know, following my LinkedIn profile, which I'm active on LinkedIn and love following all that Becker's is producing there. I'm a husband father, which are the two most important things, an educationalist, which is code for being a lecturer here at Kent State's College of Public Health and a cycling adventure advocate. So I've had about two decades of industry experience outside of higher education. So I spent about seven and a half years in health insurance working for a regional payer and nearly 15 years in telecommunications. So my goal really is to bring the professional real world into the classroom along with creating some impactful educational experiences. Scott, as you suggested, I am currently a lecturer at Kent State University's College of Public Health and I'll take a moment just to kind of share our mission along with some of my educational background. I support our mission here at Kent State's College of Public Health to advance public health by preparing leaders. I'm going to underline that word scientists and practitioners to collaborate with the community, partners in conducting impactful research and practice to solve public health challenges. Again, my focus is focusing on teaching leadership courses to the next generation of leaders. And I take out the word public health leaders because we have students going in a variety of different industries and fields. In addition to my professional work experience, my own educational journey has definitely guided my role as a lecturer. I started my undergrad degree at Tiffin University in Tiffin, Ohio in the western part of the state. And I was a student athlete there, running collegiate cross country for a year. I completed my bachelor's degree in business at Ball and Wallace University. I actually finished up there when it was Ball and Wallace College. And I have two masters from Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio. My first master's in change management. One of the constants, right, is change, along with a master's in management science.
- [03:41]
B
Focus on healthcare and so what an amazing background in career. Let's talk about leadership for a second. To start off with, there's so many things that you do that I'd love to talk about, like cycling, like family, and so much more. But let's start with leadership. When you work with emerging leaders and talk with emerging leaders, what advice would you give to emerging leaders? You know, what advice. How do you, how do you start with thinking about how you advise or think about mentoring emerging leaders?
- [04:14]
C
That's an awesome question, Scott, thanks for asking. There's really three items of advice I'd like to share and then actually from the 90s, pay something forward. So, you know, leadership definitely starts with paying attention and I think we'll circle back to appreciative inquiry, you know, here a little bit in our talk here, but paying attention not only to people and systems, but also the leader themselves. As an emerging leader, you know, titles matter far less than empathy, being curious, and I'm going to use the word courage very specifically to ask better questions. You know, I'll emphasize that real leadership is less about control and more about creating conditions for others to do their best work is I think the first piece of advice. The second is kind of aligned to my own teaching philosophy. Where I'm trying to to do in the classroom is bring the real world into the classroom. So staying connected to the real world, it's important and great to, you know, be focused and theory driven and clearly strategy matters. But all of those need to be connected, you know, with lived experiences. So whether in public health, in higher ed, or health insurance, leaders need to have an understanding of how policy and decisions impact and land on the humans that they're supporting, serving, or their end using customers. What I think that unfolds as is meaningful listening, right? Being able to listen to understand versus listening to respond, which is super hard in our very fast paced environment. Engaging with communities and as all great things happen through others, kind of respecting the experience of that frontline team. Oftentimes the frontline team has the answers and oftentimes it's the role of the leader to be able to extract that and be able to turn that into something actionable. My third bullet point from advice, and this I think I've learned from my own pinch points and failures, is really encouraging them to embrace being uncomfortable. Right. The concept of being comfortable in uncomfortable situations, it's more of a signal or sign for growth versus a failure. And these, these areas of being uncomfortable can be during career pivots, uncertainty in leading in complex situations, or just when kind of your path detours from, you know, where you're not planning to go from either a process or a career perspective. So these pinch points and this discomfort is an invitation, I think, to learn and grow. And again, it's a, it's a challenge to be comfortable being uncomfortable as leaders.
- [07:29]
B
Yes. Let me ask you this question, Robert. When you see leaders getting things right, when you see leaders sort of operating how you think they should be operating, what does that look like?
- [07:43]
C
Yeah, I, I think obviously their leadership style makes a big difference to that. And I know my own leadership style has changed over time. We'll talk a little bit more about serving it leadership. I think at 50, I'm a more servient leadership leader than when I was 30, but really trying to lead in an authentic manner based on that person. From talking to students that have gone from undergraduate, maybe, to a master's program and getting into a leadership role. What I hear from the students sharing is when they need to kind of fake it or act the way that they think they should act is when they have the missteps and when they're able to lead in an authentic manner to themselves is where they thrive, is what I've experienced. Scott.
- [08:34]
B
Thanks. The more that they're operating, like themselves, authenticity, when they're trying to put on ears or pretend to speak in a certain voice, act a certain way that doesn't feel legitimate or authentic to them, it's very hard to be a centered, congruent leader. And if people really relate to you over the long run, I'm going to ask you a question, Robert. It used to be that we talked about, is it more important for a leader to be liked or respected? And if you went back 20 plus years ago, universally people would have often said it's more important to be respected than liked. Has that changed over the years? Is it now? How do you think about that? Respected versus liked as a leader? Any thoughts?
- [09:15]
C
Yeah, that, that's a great question. And if I had the answer that, I think I would have an awesome book published to that point. I think it's A. An outstanding question. I'll actually kind of, you know, jump a little bit to one of the trends that I'm watching to kind of help answer that question. So one of the three items I want to talk about from a trend perspective is emotional intelligence as a trend in leadership. And by no means is emotional intelligence a new topic. However, about a year ago, Forbes published a great article titled the Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership. And the two quotes I prepped for our chitchat today is that leaders with a high emotional intelligence tend to prevail. It's not because they command attention, but because it's their ability to bring people together. And then the other quote is cultivating empathy for your employees and caring about them from their challenges motivates them. And that's key. So to help answer that question, I really do think it's a. It's neither or both. I don't believe that you need to be a, like a friendly, light leader to be effective, but one that has consistency of how you deliver your leadership and, you know, respect, I think, you know, ties into that. So if, if I could pick one as a leader, I think I would pick respect over, you know, being liked. From my experience at 50 now.
- [11:02]
B
No, no. And I love that when you see a leader, you touch on this a little bit. When you see a leader operating not how they should be operating, you know, in business and healthcare, in any place, you know, I want to stay out of politics, but. But in business or healthcare, what does that look like sometimes? Give us a sense that.
- [11:22]
C
Yeah, and thanks for narrowing the scope. I think that makes for the best discussion I really do think about servant leadership. And for anyone that knows Northeast Ohio, Kent State is off of I76. That runs east, west across the state. And where I'm going with this is Robert Greenleaf, the father of serving at leadership, actually started their career with AT&T. The legacy AT&T just a few miles east of Kent in Youngson, Ohio. So the opposite of servient leadership is more of that, I think, command and control leadership style. And what always, I guess entertains me is when a leader tells you, oh, I'm the, you know, I'm the fairest or I'm a. The most liked manager. And then you kind of have this command and control. There's a little pinch point there. And I'm going to quote a Rush song. And Scott, I think that might be of your musical era. You know, it's easier to show someone versus tell from a leadership perspective. And when a leader shows Their maybe less servient side is where you run into that, that mix match. I hope that resonates with you.
- [12:44]
B
SCOTT well, certainly, Rush, you know, I'm a few years older than you, so this is a little bit frightening for the audience, but Rush was one of my absolute favorite rock bands of all time and remains so. And I could actually sing to you songs like He's Today's Tom Sawyer, but I will not do that. Or songs like Salesman from, from Rush, but absolutely love Rush. And I love the concept of showing how you act, seeing how you act and so forth. I love that. Talk more about leadership. How important are is communication style for leaders? Any thoughts there and things that you could share with us on that, at.
- [13:31]
C
Least from, you know, as a frontline customer service rep at the phone company years ago to, you know, being a manager within a regional health insurance provider, I think you almost have to ask what someone's, you know, communication style is. You know, two things come to mind. I remember at the regional insurance provider I had a very embedded team with, you know, decades of experience. And our team focused on HRAs, FSAs and HSAs. And, you know, they knew that line of business way better than I did. And early on I had a, I'll call it a pinch point with one of my direct reports. And, you know, they had decades experience. They got great feedback from the clients, but we always seemed to clash. And maybe on week three or four, called them into the office and said, hey, you know, just want to chat through some things. And, you know, this is what I'm seeing. It seems like, you know, we, you and I are not communicating, you know, well together. And as it turned out, they were very analytical and really wanted all of the details and all the details laid out. And because I was maybe less experienced in some of those details, along with my own communication style, were struggling. And after that conversation and probably took a couple weeks to kind of smooth those things out, we were able to, to better align. You know, I there's a great book by Bill George called True north. And within that book might have been the executive from Starbucks. Maybe it was someone else, but they really talked about. Some leaders are more charismatic and people kind of gravitate towards them. Other folks, you know, have different communication styles, but equally effective. Putting my higher ed hat on or keeping this higher hat on, what I would like, what I tell students. And you know, for any of the younger professionals listening to this or leaders that are mentoring younger professionals, I think what we need to get to is being comfortable public Speaking and it doesn't mean that you are the best public speaker or the most charismatic, but being able to be comfortable in a one on one conversation or in front of the boardroom. What I personally have found while working at the telecommunications company is I am comfortable up to about the audience size of 3000 live in person. And that situation of being uncomfortable really strengthened my future ability to speak in front of large groups. So I don't have a specific communication style that works, but in working with teams kind of going through that storming and norming process, oftentimes we'll ask them. Asking some discovery questions associated with communication I think is a, is a good solution for a path forward.
- [16:50]
B
I think what you just said is so fascinating about speaking in front of different size audiences. I think that is such a fascinating discussion because sometimes it can be more intimidating to speak in front of audience of 10 than 1000 because you're very intimate with that 10 then and they really can see and feel how you're feeling and what you're doing. Where sometimes you could be in front of a thousand and not speak at people but, but sometimes it could be easier because you're not as intimate with the audience. And I love that concept. There's certain sizes where each of us feel more comfortable speaking with than others. Some of us are very comfortable one on one with people, others are very comfortable with groups. And it's sort of knowing yourself is, is, is, is really true. Fascinating. Fascinating. Robert, I know I've got to let you go pretty soon. Professor, anything else you'd like to share with us today about leadership or what's top of mind for you currently?
- [17:44]
C
Yeah, I think the, the concept of emotional intelligence I'll just kind of briefly touch on. I had the opportunity to work through emotional intelligence with a local health department and I think the two aspects of emotional intelligence for future leaders is it does help leaders read the room and that kind of even tie back to that communication topic. The other is emotional intelligence improves collaborations. Healthcare Public health has the opportunity to create burnout and emotional intelligence helps kind of reduce that risk. Help managers recognize the signs of fatigue, frustration and disengagement and respond to their team with empathy versus, you know, command and control or compliance driven. I think in closing, the three points I hope to, you know, share is one of the trends I'm seeing is masters in public health. The degree showing up more and more in job wrecks, you know, based on the skill set and the lens they bring to the role. Also the best practice that I heard back into the 90s. What I'll pay forward is as emerging leaders are able to increase their salary, this great leader from the telecommunications world made the suggestion of putting some of that into their retirement account. And I'm not a financial advisor. I've learned from my own successes and failures in Saving for Tomorrow. But there is a great TED talk that is titled Saving for Tomorrow Tomorrow that suggests you put some of your extra earnings in for the future. And because of compound interest, if I was a young leader, I hope I would have heard that earlier in my career.
- [19:53]
B
No, I love that. Robert Professor Collins, it is just a pleasure to visit with you today. Thank you for taking the time to talk leadership with us on the Beckers Healthcare podcast. Really a tremendous pleasure to visit with you. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [20:07]
C
Thanks for hosting. Scott.