Leadership in Health Management

This article discusses the importance of leadership in healthcare organizations and how to implement appropriate leadership theories to manage operational activities effectively. It includes a background of Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, learning from leadership theory, formal health frameworks, and strategic management. It also covers the selection criteria for the selected position and the development of experience, knowledge, and skills.

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Running Head: LEADERSHIP
Leadership in Health Management

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Executive summary
Leadership is an essential element for the organization in managing the entire business operation
and the human resources in effective manner. In this concern, it is essential for the healthcare
organization to implement appropriate leadership theories to manage the operational activities in
better manner and provide improved care services for the individuals. Vic Health is Victorian
Health Promotion Foundation of Australia, which is known for leadership and excellence in
promotion of health promotion programs and policies. In addition, working effectively at a
leading position is considered as a basic requirement of maintaining good relations with the
subordinates and implementing a transparent communication practice. The management requires
managing variety of roles and responsibilities but at the same time having to act as leader that
will be responsible for the decisions and will stand to protect the interests of the followers. In
addition, the development of personal skills and experience is essential for an individual to
perform his duty and the job in effective manner. In this concern, the organizations should
implement appropriate development programs to improve the knowledge and skills of the
employees to attain the organizational objectives in better manner and provide better services to
their customers.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................2
Table of Contents........................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
(a) Background Information about the Organization...................................................................................5
(b) Learning’s from leadership theory, framework and strategic management............................................6
(c) Selection Criteria for the Selected Position..........................................................................................11
(d) Development of Experience, Knowledge and Skills (Mapping out Career Pathway)..........................14
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................17
References.................................................................................................................................................18
Appendix...................................................................................................................................................20
Exhibit 1: Personal Skill Audit....................................................................................................................20

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Introduction
This plan is focused towards the exercise to be done to obtain the desired position in an
organisation. The plan will discuss the back ground information of Victorian Health Promotion
Foundation, a pioneer in health promotion that supports the process of enable people to improve
and control over health. This plan will also discuss the role, mission and values of the
organization in relation to the operations. This plan will also compare the role and learning from
leadership theory, formal health frameworks and strategic management. The next part of the plan
will discuss the responses to match the selection criteria based on the academic literature. The
plan will also evaluate the strengths and weaknesses to map out the career pathway.

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(a) Background Information about the Organization
The full name of Vic Health is Victorian Health Promotion Foundation. Vic Health is a statutory
authority of Australia. As per the selected job position, Vic Health has invited application in
order to fill vacancy for the job position of Manager, Health Promotion Operations. Originally,
the Vic Health was founded in 1987. Vic Health has been recognized as world’s first health
promotion body. This is mainly funded by tax on Tobacco. Vic Health has the role to do
promotion of good health for the people living in Victoria. The main goal of Vic Health is on
preventing the chronic diseases and promoting the good health among Victorians (Vic Health,
2018). Vic Health is known for leadership and excellence in promotion of health promotion
programs and policies. Headquarter of this company is situated at 15-31 Pelham St, Carlton,
Victoria, Australia. At the same time, CEO of Vic Health is Jerril Rechter. The vision of Vic
Health is to support and enhance the wellbeing of all Victorians.
The action agenda of Vic Health for 2013 to 2023 for health promotion emphasizes on different
strategic imperatives. The example of these strategic imperatives includes improving the mental
health, preventing harm from alcohol abuse, prevention of tobacco consumption, promoting
healthy life style like physical activities, regular exercise and encouraging the healthy eating
habits among Victorians (Vic Health, 2018). This way, it can be analyzed the practices and
operations of Vic Health are highly obligated by Tobacco Act of 1987 of Victorian legislation
system. Core business operations of Vic Health are also aligned with international (like WHO
charter) and national health priorities and policies, state government program and policy
directions. The board of governance of Vic Health has accountability towards Victorian Minister
for Health.

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Vic Health emphasizes on adoption of a business model of shared responsibility. Under this
mode, the company develops partnership with different companies in different sectors of
economy. In other words, the administration and board of governance of on development of
shared solution through active participation of disparate parties from distinct sectors. Example of
these sectors includes local communities, industry, the arts, education sector, media, research
sports, health, government and the NGOs (Vic Health, 2018). In September 2014, the company
has been recognized as WHO collaborating center for leadership in the field of health promotion.
This has facilitated opportunity and ability to the company to build capacity of new and existing
health promotion business entities through mentoring and technical support in the Western
Pacific Region.
(b) Learning’s from leadership theory, framework and strategic management
Leadership theory
For the purpose of working effectively at a leading position it is the basic requirement to
maintain good relations with the subordinates and implement a transparent communication
practice. Leadership is the interaction among human resource that utilize the skills in such a
manner so that to improves efficiency at the organization. A manager is required to manage
variety of roles and responsibilities but at the same time have to act as leader that will be
responsible for the decisions and will stand to protect the interests of the followers. Leaders tend
to bring organizational change by not only developing the vision but also develop and apply
strategies to implement necessary changes (Landis, Hill, & Harvey, 2014). They also keep on
motivating and inspiring workforce for attaining vision and communicating it regularly.
Trait theory focuses on the individual characteristics or skills, this theory entails that leaders are
born with inherited traits and some traits suits to leadership these traits and skills are the

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combination that is significant to leaders. The main identified traits are adaptability, cooperation,
ambitious and achievement oriented, assertive and desire to influence others at the same time
there are certain identified skills are intelligence, conceptually skilled, creative, and diplomatic
and tactfulness (Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube, 2015). There are several other traits and
skills that are also identified but the main factor needed for a leader is power to influence and
take responsibility for decisions whether it is right or wrong.
Behavioral theory is another framework that discusses three leadership styles. Authoritarian is
leadership style where a leader dictates what is to be done by the followers. The control exists in
the hand of the leader leaving low autonomy in group. On the other side, democratic leader is a
participative approach that considers the views and ideas of the group for the purpose of decision
making. This approach can be applied in any organization from small to large business and
government organizations to hospital or private businesses so this is known as collective decision
process (Bolman, & Deal, 2017). Another approach in leadership is laissez-faire which allows
full authority to the group members to take decision but it is not considered suitable as it leads to
decrease productivity and employees misuse the liberty. Transactional leadership is also a
popular approach where leaders promote working through rewards and punishments.
Transformational leadership approach causes individual and social change through exchange of
the ideas and lead to higher level of morale and motivation (Antonakis, & Day, 2017). As per
functional and operational requirements of Vic Health, it will be required to manage human
resource and transformational leadership is the approach that will be considered as suitable
approach for achieving the goals and objectives of the organization.
Formal health leadership frameworks

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It is vital requirement for a leadership position role that requires continuous interaction with the
top level management. At the same time, it is required to identify and evaluate the strategic
decisions for the sustainability of the organization and manage the work force. There are several
other responsibility and key performance areas that require different skills and compatibility to
work in effective manner (Lynch, McCance, McCormack, & Brown, 2018). The identified traits
for effective working requires to adapt and manage the as per the requirements of the
management. It is also required to work in team and cooperate with the subordinates to make
them understand the responsibility and motivate them to work with more efforts to achieve the
goals. Leadership framework consists of three core elements that directs towards effective
leadership (Dinh, et al., 2014). It involves leading people, leading yourself and leading the
organisation. It is required that the decisions taken by a leader must benefit all the elements of
the framework to manage employee relationships.
Leading people requires fulfilment of several day to day requirements such as providing safe
working environment, creation and dissemination of effective roles and clear responsibility to the
team members. It is identified that commonly organisation conflict, failure to deliver business
outcomes and poor performance are the outcome of poor role design, so it is needed to ensure a
well designed roles, clear accountabilities and clear rules are to be provided to enable focused
thinking and engagement of the employees (Daft, 2014). the process for developing
performance sequence is to evaluate role, select, induct and assign the responsibility thereafter it
is required to assess and reward for outstanding achievements that leads to enhance the
productivity and over all development. At the same time, it is also needed to ensure that the
employees coordinate with each other and work in teams with commitment, competence and
enthusiasm to deal with the obstacles towards achievement of the goals (Wagner, 2016).

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The job position requires acting as a leader for leading and managing a team for which there is a
requirement to understand the different responsibilities which are required to be performed to
fulfil and do justification with the job role. For this purpose, there is a need to know the
capabilities of self and match it with the proposed responsibilities mentioned in the job
description (Bolman, & Deal, 2017). This helps in making significant contribution towards the
achievement of the goal and objectives of the organisation.
Strategic management
It is identified that the different concepts related to the strategic management are helpful in the
evaluation of the job role that needs to be taken by an individual to make effective decisions. The
different approaches which are learned regarding strategic management includes Tuckman’s
team building framework which consists of five stages namely forming, storming, norming,
performing and adjourning (Hill, Jones, & Schilling, 2014). It is the responsibility for the
manager to establish cordial relations between the team members for which first of all there is a
requirement to create effective team. An effective team can be build by the use of this model as
there is a presence of diversity among the work force due to which it is essential to bring all the
members of the group together and provide them opportunity to know each other and understand
their roles and responsibilities.
This in turn helps in establishing coordination and cooperation between them to attain the goal in
a timely manner. It is the requirement of the leader to communicate the roles and responsibilities
to the ream members and listen to their queries in an empathetic manner which in turn helps in
building trust and confidence among the team members towards the leader (Hitt & Duane
Ireland, 2017). This also helps in improving their performance and productivity. The strategic
management module also provides helps in learning the different methods which can be applied

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in the job to measure the performance of the team members such as 360 degree feedback. this
method can be applied effectively in the job role as there is a need to gain feedback from the
employees, senior managers, customers and other stakeholders regarding the performance of the
employees and providing the employees, a constructive feedback regarding their performance
which in turn helps in promoting self-motivation in them so that they can identify their weak
areas and put efforts to improve it in order to attain high level of customer satisfaction (Wagner,
2016). This helps in accelerating their growth and development from the perspective of the
profession. The module has also provide the information that the employee should be given an
opportunity to communicate with each other in an open manner which has been required to be
applied while pursuing the job role of the manager. It is essential to establish a common
communication platform where the team members can easily interact with other teams and
collaborate with them to carry out the functions and tasks in a productive manner (Ginter,
Duncan, & Swayne, 2018). This also helps in providing solutions to the problems which are
commonly faced by them while carrying out the work.
In a similar manner, the concept of sales promotions and marketing has also been utilised to
carry out the job role of the Health Promotion manager as there is a requirement of spreading
awareness regarding different health campaigns carried out by the organisation which in turn
results in attracting more number of customers to wards the company and helps in improving its
market share in the region (Ginter et al., 2018). This also helps in identification of different
opportunities available in the market which can be exploited by the company to gain a
competitive advantage over other players in the market.

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(c) Selection Criteria for the Selected Position
Selection criteria can be defined as the standards or criteria that need to be fulfilled by different
job applicants in order to get shortlisted for the job in a company. The selection criteria for a job
can be related to different aspects such as industry experience, abilities, skills, academic
background (or qualification) and the technical knowledge. In context of the selected job position
(Manager, Health Promotion Operations at Vic Health, Australia), there are different types of
selection criteria based on knowledge, experience and skills of the job applicants applying for the
job. Qualification and experience is the first selection criteria for this job. The post graduation is
a desirable qualification for the position of manager in Vic Health (Goh et al., 2015). This is a
minimum criterion for eligibility of a person in order to apply for job of operation manager in
Vic Health. In context of experience, a person applying for job of selected position in Vic Health
should have extensive experience in public health, health promotion, community and the
government sector. It means the relevant industry experience is required for a person in order to
stay eligible for position of manager in Vic Health.
In context of health promotion, it is also a selection criteria that a person needs the high level of
knowledge about health promotion principles. There should be past record of involvement in
health promotion implementation of the person in order to achieve the major benefits locally and
at larger scale. In addition to this, a person applying for the job of manager in Vic Health must be
capable to work in different kinds of topic areas as per the action agenda of Vic Health. It is also
an important requirement for a person to stay eligible for this job to possess competence of
knowledge creation and knowledge transfer in the field of health promotion (Badland et al.,
2014). Apart from this, there should be presence of the knowledge in the areas of health equity
approaches in health promotion. So, overall it can be said that a person with high level of

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industry knowledge and experience will have greater chances of getting shortlisted for the
selection for position of operation manager in Vic Health.
Another selection criteria provided by company is related to the area of operation management.
In terms of operational management, the candidate or job applicant must have ability to
transform the high level of business aims designed by upper management into the actionable
practices. Apart from these, the job applicant should have competence to develop and review
implementation plan of company for helping the company in the achievement of strategic
business objectives and goals. This will help him/ her to get shortlisted for the job. A person can
get shortlisted for the job, if he or she is ready to work in flexibility, and is adaptable to work in
any environment. The individual applying for job operation manager at Vic Health must be able
to decide priority among different tasks and responsibilities according to nature or urgency and
degree of importance (Goh et al., 2015). This kind of candidates should also have the ability to
focus on continuous improvement within the organization. They should also be able to initiate
the change process effectively and successfully, whenever any change is required at workplace
due to change in the organizational policy or external factors. There should also be ability of
effective planning, allocation and monitoring of financial as well as other resources in the
organization.
People management skills are also required among the candidates applying for the job of
manager in Vic Health. The person should have competence of people engagement, support and
positive influence over others in order to achieve the goal of health promotion. Such people
should also have the competency of negotiation skills, excellent communication and the
delegation skills. These all skills are required in order to deliver best productivity at workplace in
the organization. In addition to this, the job applicants should be able to develop and implement

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positive organization culture at workplace. There should be experience in performance
management in context of the performance of other employees and the performance management
of self. In other words, they should be able to develop a collaborative work culture within the
organization. In addition to this, only those job applicants can be shortlisted for the job having
ability to develop the model of behavioral expectations from different employees at the
workplace in business entity.
Stakeholder relationship management is also a major area of responsibility that is expectation for
this job. It means, the person applying for job of operation manager at Vic Health must be
competent in stakeholder relationship management in the organization. There should be a proved
historical track record of the person in stakeholder relationship management activities like
developing and maintaining trustworthy, positive and strong relationship with different
stakeholders of the organization in their past industry experience. They should have competency
to understand various needs, behavior and expectations of the stakeholders (Meintjes & Grobler,
2014). They should have sufficient knowledge of how to develop and maintain collaborative
business relationship with different stakeholders for the accomplishment of health promotion
results. They should be able to show active and constructive role in addressing the stakeholder
issues in the business.
Excellent communication is the most important selection criteria for the post of manager in Vic
Health. The excellent communication is required by the manager to stay able to convey
important ideas, concepts and information in a manner that is easily accessible by the target
audience. They should be competent to make negotiation for different business contracts in a
way that is fair, respectful and persuasive for the engaged party (Kennedy et al., 2014). The

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candidate applying for job should have excellent knowledge in the aspects of giving constructive
feedback to the colleagues and subordinates as well as in the written communication.
(d) Development of Experience, Knowledge and Skills (Mapping out Career Pathway)
I have planned to get recruited as the manager in the Vic Health as my short term career goal.
Personal skill audit is an important technique that can be used in order to know the personal
strengths and weaknesses in terms of different skills and competencies. Following table is
helpful to summarize the result of my personal skill audit:
(Source: See Exhibit 1 in Appendix)
On the basis of above table, it can be analyzed that there are different skills and competencies, in
which I have expertise. Example of these skills includes ability to convert strategic business
goals into workable business practices and initiatives, development of behavioral model for
others, competence of knowledge creation and knowledge sharing, stakeholder relationship

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management and ability to work in flexible work environment. I also have expertise in different
skills like communication, people management competence and the industry experience.
However, there are certain skill areas, in which I have lack of expertise (Hickey, 2013). Example
of these skill areas involves competency to decide priority among different jobs and
responsibilities, time management, negotiation skills, motivation and inspiration of others and
the problem solving. These skill areas are the development areas for me. I have to improve my
competence in these skill areas in order to get selected for the job of manager in Vic Health as
selected in this report.
The ability to decide priority among different jobs and responsibilities can be improved through
consultation with the senior authority of organization. In addition to this, if no such support is
available, then it is important to evaluate the urgency of different tasks and responsibilities in a
particular project and then priority can be set. The time management skills can be learned
through developing with strict timelines and complying with these timelines/ WBS/ Gantt chart
for different tasks and responsibilities. The use of time management gadgets can also help to
improve time management skill (Gilbert, Bobadilla, Gastaldi, Boulaire, and Lelebina, 2018). The
negotiation skills can be improved, if a person has excellent knowledge of different aspects for
which the negotiation is required. In order to develop/ improve problem solving skill, I will
involve in face to face meeting different senior employees and managers in order to understand
from their past experience on problem solving in different situations. I will also follow the
creative problem solving approach for same. I will also explore online and offline sources to
understand different solutions adopted for different problems faced at workplace in the
organization (Chunfang, 2016). Excellent communication is also very important for same. I have
excellent communication and will develop knowledge about different situations through active

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participation with the available authority in organization. In order to improve my motivation and
inspiration skills, I will review the online and offline sources of motivation skills and
competences. I will also join motivational seminars and conferences in different places.

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Conclusion
On the basis of above analysis, it can be concluded that Vic Health is a health promotion
foundation of Victoria, Australia. There are different selection criteria that are mentioned by the
organization (foundation) for the position of manager such as at least graduation, excellent
communication, people management competence, negotiation skills, problem solving, ability to
convert strategic business goals or decisions of organization into workable goals etc. These all
competences are required in a job applicant in order to get selected for the job of operation
manager in Vic Health.

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References
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principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1),
6-14.
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Badland, H., Whitzman, C., Lowe, M., Davern, M., Aye, L., Butterworth, I., Hes, D. & Giles-
Corti, B. (2014). Urban liveability: emerging lessons from Australia for exploring the
potential for indicators to measure the social determinants of health. Social science &
medicine, 111, 64-73.
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Chunfang, Z. (2016). Handbook of Research on Creative Problem-Solving Skill Development in
Higher Education. USA: IGI Global.
Daft, R. L. (2014). The leadership experience. USA: Cengage Learning.
Dinh, J. E., Lord, R. G., Gardner, W. L., Meuser, J. D., Liden, R. C., & Hu, J. (2014). Leadership
theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing
perspectives. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 36-62.
Gilbert, P., Bobadilla, N., Gastaldi, L., Boulaire, M.L. & Lelebina, O. (2018). Innovation,
Research and Development Management. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care
organizations. USA: John Wiley & Sons.

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Goh, J., Pfeffer, J., Zenios, S.A. & Rajpal, S. (2015). Workplace stressors & health outcomes:
Health policy for the workplace. Behavioral Science & Policy, 1(1), 43-52.
Hickey, J. (2013). Literacy for QTLS: Achieving the Minimum Core. UK: Routledge.
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Appendix
Exhibit 1: Personal Skill Audit
Personal Skill Audit
Name of the Skills or Competencies Finding of the Skills Audit
Professional qualification 1 2 3 4 5
Excellent communication 1 2 3 4 5
Problem solving 1 2 3 4 5
People management competence 1 2 3 4 5
Negotiation skills 1 2 3 4 5
Motivation or inspiration to others 1 2 3 4 5
Industry experience 1 2 3 4 5
Time management 1 2 3 4 5
Working in flexibility 1 2 3 4 5
Stakeholder relationship management 1 2 3 4 5
Competence of knowledge creation and the knowledge
transfer
1 2 3 4 5
Deciding priority of jobs and responsibilities 1 2 3 4 5
Developing behavioral model for others 1 2 3 4 5
Converting strategic business goals into workable
business practices
1 2 3 4 5