Mentors must seek to strengthen weak regions of up-and-comers

Healthcare information technology leaders have myriad issues to solve in their daily lives, and those urgent demands often drown out the requirement to recognize others with leadership potential. Mentors must seek to strengthen weak regions of up-and-comers.

That has to change, asserts Rachel Hall, executive director of performance improvement at Ernst & Young, who has powerful opinions about the obligation of female leaders in healthcare IT to identify and mentor potential leaders. Mentors must seek to strengthen weak regions of up-and-comers.

“There is no secret box to what a potential leader looks like,” claims Hall, who’ll speak on this topic at next week’s Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT event in Boston. The day-long conference will be held May 17 in the region of Boston.

To be effective in finding and supporting emerging leaders, executives need to “recognize those with capabilities and leadership and indicate them a path,” claims Hall, who is also one of the top 75 honorees opted by Health Data Management this year. For instance, Ernst & Young has a mentor program for females who are new mothers with the aim of supporting them so they can remain in the workforce during this period of changing requirements. Mentors must seek to strengthen weak regions of up-and-comers.

Seek out females who’ve a range of characteristics that bring value to an agency, involving assertiveness, influence, honesty, the capability to show a vision, as well as those who know what their own biases are and can work to overcome them, Hall will tell her peers. “Individuals think men are more assertive than women, but it is significant for us to be assertive as well.”

There are perceptions that can hold back females, and these must be brought to the surface, Hall considers. A specific woman in an organization, for example, may be ready for promotion, but there might be a perception that that she does not speak up in meetings. To counter that, a mentor should present a strategy to overcome what is holding her back, Hall claims. But it could be a double-edged sword—she may be attempting not to speak because she is being respectful of others, or she might not have a vision.

Hall will implore others to become passionate about growing female leaders and to force them. “It is the person-to-person interactions and the capability to bounce ideas off other individuals that has made my career fulfilling as I watch them grow in their careers,” she states.