Care Leadership

Revolutionizing Culture and Care Through Leadership

Quality of leadership yields success or failure in any business.  Companies have succeeded or toppled in the hands of a single leader.  While the impact of a lack of leadership for major businesses is often seen on the nightly news, the quiet cost and breakdown in long-term care is all too often overlooked or not addressed at all.   A lack of effective leadership will lead to the demise of the facility; along the way it wields a strongly negative impact on the people who live and work in these communities.

Culture change and the transformation of long-term care will not occur or be sustained without leadership support.  Like it or not, what will or will not happen in a facility is in the hands of the person at the top; the leader, CEO, the administrator.  The leader  sets the tone and has the power to make transformational change or to stop it.

Revolutionizing leadership for Assisted Living and Long-Term Care Administrators, Susan Gilster and Associates have developed a model to guide administrators in a new way of leading in long-term care.  Contemporary leadership is more than just planning, organizing and controlling, as was the mantra of the past.  SERVICE, a leadership model is a person-centered approach to providing care on an organizational scale.  It is a method of engaging all facility employees to join together to support the vision and provide the highest quality service. 

Many Administrators want to establish a person-centered program or initiate a culture change initiative but all too often they do not know how.  SERVICE is a guide to enhance the leader’s ability to change the culture of an existing facility, whether they have been at the helm for a long time or are just starting in a new position. 

SERVICE is an organization-wide model of care where tasks and responsibilities fall on all staff - not just the leaders.  It is a means of gathering people from all departments and all shifts, and enhancing their ability to participate in decision making, problem solving, and plans for the facility.  In effect, the employees have a sense of ownership and responsibility to work to make the facility successful because it belongs to them.   

The model implies a caring leader who is passionate about serving all of people including residents, families, staff and community.  Person-centered care takes on a new meaning in that it is not just the needs of the residents that are met, but meeting the needs of anyone who comes into contact with the facility - in any way at any time.