By Renee Jensen

Are all successful leaders competitive by nature? If pressed to name a leader who is not the least bit competitive, I don’t think I could. I can honestly say that I have never met a successful leader who isn’t always striving to be better, improve themselves, or at very least outperform a friendly competitor.

By Renee Jensen

In past articles, I have shared about my (fairly new) love for running. Truth be told, though, I am not sure I actually love running itself as much as the escape that running offers me. I love the pure physical exhaustion that lets my mind be free of everything and present in the moment. I love the feeling of accomplishment when I reach a new milestone, but not necessarily the act of running itself. For these reasons, I often say that I don’t consider myself a “real” runner. (Although, once a friend scolded me for saying that, reminding me: “You run; therefore, you are a real runner.”)

By Renee Jensen

Active listening is an essential skill for anyone who leads others. Ensuring others feel heard and understood is part of what builds strong teams, but I have found that when you’re having a conversation as a team or with an individual, listening to what they aren’t saying is just as important as listening to what they are saying.

By Renee Jensen

There are many things that the COVID pandemic has taught us. For me, the experiences of the past year have reinforced something many of us already knew: your state of mind can be a very powerful influence on the outcome of your work, your day, and even your life.

By Renee Jensen

When was the last time you had time to ponder a curiosity or seemingly unimportant fact? Our lives are crazy busy with work, family, chores, and oh, not to mention the pandemic! It leaves little time for our minds to be free to explore new ideas, ponder existing dilemmas, or rehash a concept for which you still have not stumbled upon a reasonable solution. Taking time for yourself may seem unimportant given the current state of the world and our nation, but it is necessary for your sanity and personal growth.

If you don’t make time to allow your thoughts to run free and your creativity to go wild and uninhibited, how will you ever explore new concepts beyond your comfortable day-to-day world?

By Renee Jensen

Have you ever found yourself in a situation like this:

You’re in a meeting where everything is going along smoothly. You are feeling optimistic—you may get done early so you can get back to your office and have a few minutes back in your day! All of the sudden, someone in the room derails the conversation and direction of the meeting causing a flurry of discussion, debate and disagreement.

By Renee Jensen

If you are part of your hospital’s front-line staff, think about the last time a member of the executive team rounded in your department. Did the staff scatter, hide behind the computer, and hope to not be noticed, or pretend to be too busy to be interrupted? Did you take one for the team and entertain the executive until they finally left?

As a CEO performing my rounds, this is sure how it felt to me.

By Renee Jensen - When was the last time you evaluated your own risk tolerance? In life there are all kinds of risks to consider: financial investments, adventures, personal relationships, professional decisions; the list could go on and on…

By Renee Jensen

The topic of career transition is something that strong, successful leaders rarely talk about, despite the fact that it is something that almost every professional will experience in some way, at some point in their career.

Transition isn’t something you are going to learn about in business school, and chances are you won’t even know you need to know about it until you find yourself in a situation where your career or life are undergoing a major change.

By Renee Jensen

This is a trying time for leaders in the healthcare industry. The pandemic is putting stress on operations and financials, and is straining the capacity of the entire healthcare system. We have huge challenges to overcome, but it’s difficult to know how to lead and find a way forward in a situation no one has experienced before.

By Renee Jensen

I am passionate about my leadership in the healthcare field. I also love being a mother. Being a working mom has its challenges, and the decision to invest in my career and my family at the same time has brought the occasional judgmental comment—from colleagues, other parents, and even my own family. Some have offered encouragement, telling me that being a mom is just as important as anything else I could do. And while strides are being made for gender equality in the workplace, I don’t feel that motherhood is valued equally in the workplace, or in our culture.

By Renee Jensen

The rise of COVID-19 has changed the way the healthcare industry and our society operate, seemingly overnight. The uncertainty of the future is sobering and stressful, but I believe there may be a silver lining to this experience that is hard to see when you’re in the thick of a pandemic. Once we get through the heat of the moment, we could see some positive changes to our families, health, communities, and the way care is delivered.

By Renee Jensen

At one of the hospitals I served as CEO, I brought in an executive coach to work with our senior leadership team. At the end of our time together, the coach complimented my team, saying it was one of the most high-performing groups he had ever worked with. I was shocked.

In retrospect, I truly believe the reason for our ability to perform at a high level was our deep trust in one another, established through a genuine desire to know and care for each other.

By Renee Jensen

As healthcare leaders, we want to inspire and empower our employees to do creative, high-quality work that serves our patients and our communities. There is seemingly no end to the methods executives can use to accomplish this goal, but I have found that no strategic plan, incentive, or leadership development program can foster this kind of work like an organizational culture where it’s safe to fail. When employees aren’t afraid to take a risk on an innovative idea, they are free to do their very best work.