Leadership Practices and Organizational Culture at HCA

This report provides an in-depth analysis of leadership practices and organizational culture within HCA Healthcare. The report begins by outlining the organization's objectives and describing its operational structure. It then examines the leadership style of the current CEO, Samuel Hazen, specifically focusing on the implementation of participative leadership and its impact on employee engagement and decision-making. The report includes a detailed SWOT analysis of HCA Healthcare, evaluating its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Furthermore, it discusses the influence of leadership on organizational culture, highlighting both the benefits and drawbacks of the participative approach. The report concludes with recommendations for improving leadership effectiveness, such as incorporating situational leadership and conducting employee surveys. Finally, the report provides relevant references to support its findings.

Running head: MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADING PEOPLE
MANAGING ORGANISATIONS AND LEADING PEOPLE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADING PEOPLE
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Section A.........................................................................................................................................3
Section B:.........................................................................................................................................4
Section C..........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Various factors act as potential challenges in case of hospital or health care facilities in
today’s ever-changing market demands, customer expectations, financial limitations, the
increased demand for providing improvised health care solutions. Patient’s demand for quality
services and health care provisions, therefore, effective guidance is necessary which can be
provided by adapting specific leadership styles and approaches by the organization. The main
focal point of the report is exploring the utilization of effective leaders and adaptation of
leadership approaches in clinical infrastructure.
The adaptation of three main leadership style namely transactional leadership,
participative and transactional leadership will be discussed in handling situations in Hospital
Corporations of America (HCA) situated in USA. As a member in HCA, there will be reflection
of portraying the three leadership styles that is followed by the current leader. There will also be
explanation of the clinical leadership that also is quite effective in hospital corporations and
aligns with other leadership approaches explained. A SWOT analysis will be provided about the
chosen organization as well as the present leader working there, concluding with effective
solutions and changes that must be necessary to make the leadership approaches much more
effective.

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Section A
“HCA healthcare”, is an American for profit organization who governs more than 180
hospitals and surgery center in both United Kingdom and United States. This organization is
operating from the year 1968, and was exposed in 1969, in the “New York Stock Exchange”. As
an employee working in the health care facility, it has been analyzed that the objective of HCA,
is totally patient oriented, they provide best services which are aligning with the customer
demands. Therefore, to put this to initiation, the health care giant works with integrity and
involves in continuous learning as well as research and development.
1. In the year 2019 on December 31, “Sam Hazen”, was selected as the new appointed
Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr. Hazen discussed about effective leadership style
inclusion in the health care setting, as an important aspect in operating an organization.
HCA being one the largest publicly traded company, in Nashville and have collected
approximately $43.6 million revenues in the year 2017. The organization consists of
nearly 2000 hospital facilities serving near about 150,000 patients in a single day.
Therefore, the leadership structure is considerably large in case of HCA as it consists
more than250, 000 employees with 40,000 doctors (investor.hcahealthcare.com (2020)).
Present CEO Hazen proclaims that, good leader follows purpose and helps in developing
a strong infrastructure, and HCA leadership approach generally includes participative
leadership, which compels in keeping focus on patients and employees convenience (Xu,
2017)). In case of employee convenience, he prefers in investing the behavioral
leadership as well as situational leadership in case of emergencies and crises.
2. The participative and situational leadership implemented by Samuel Hazen, along with
the advice of former Milton Johnson, spread their collaboration to Israel. The

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participative leadership is the managerial quality implemented by the leader in charge to
sportingly take input from employees, and involve them in taking important decisions.
For example, employees were chosen to serve a weeklong agenda by going to Israel, and
create networks, providing them global opportunities to understand Israel way of
innovation in developing their health care units (Dalluay & Jalagat, 2016). This helped
the employees with broader perspectives and understanding of value-based operations,
and they effectively understood, the process the health care units can be developed by
providing patients standardized and personalized services.
Section B:
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
 Free flowing activities in HCA, has
compelled them in keeping
consistency, they produce their
products which have helped the in
serving their ever-changing customer
demands (hcahealthcare.com (2020))
 They have developed a “strong brand
portfolio”, with their services and
products, they have kept successful
track of product development like
manufacturing high quality herb
extract medicines (hcaproducts.com
Weaknesses
 Lack of preferable business model,
which have limited their expansion in
product segmentation
 Incapability in product segmentation,
and provide more product variation
which also barred their expansion to
global markets
 Loss of small market share due to new
entrants in the market
 Inefficiency in utilizing cash flow in
business, tending in imbalance in
current asset ratio and liquid asset

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(2020)
 Strong suppliers relationship, they
acquire raw products from “GMP
Extraction Factory”
 The variety in products and services
have provided them with loyal
customers
 Acquired huge capital expenditure
return acquiring more than 180
hospital and 100 more surgical wards
 Availability of dealer community who
promoted their products and services
ratio
 Limited product range
 Net contribution and profit ratio are
below average
 Incapability in implementing diverse
work culture
Threats
 Effect on global sales due to the
increased rise in concept of
“isolationism”
 Changing liability policies can cause
problem in international setup of the
companies, as they will be unable to
adhere to it
 Increased demand in buying product
Opportunities
 According to the new taxation policy,
organization are liable to provide
“Federal Graduated rates of tax”, of 15
to 35 percent to the income ranging
from $335,000 to 15,000,000. This
policy will help HCA healthcare, in
grabbing new opportunities
 Increase in customer spending in case

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from online sites can be a considerable
threat to the present infrastructure of
the company
 Lack in skilled workforce will decline
the profit generation of company
 The products provided by HCA is
seasonal which can decrease the profit
in other seasons
of health, will create an opportunity
for the company to gain profit
 The provision of government free
trade agreement will provide HCA to
expand into new markets
 Lower inflation rate will bring
stability to the company operations
 Government green drive initiative will
make the company reach to heights, as
they are already producer of herbal
medicinal product
Table 1: SWOT analysis of HCA health care
(Source: Created by author)
Section C
1. According to Almaaitah and Almaaitah, (2017), participative leadership is the theory
most adapted by Samuel hazer along with former CEO of HCA, Milton…, provides
opportunities to their employees in developing on an individual basis. The products and
services that are the created by HCA is the development of the employees working in the
organization collaboratively. According to Samuel Hazen, leadership is ideal when it
tends in implementing a value proposition overall, the company also engages with their
dealer in a much collaborative manner, which encourages the company dealers to
promote their products as well. According to Sagnak, (2016), a participative leader

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strengthens his relationships with his followers, involve them in every decisions, striving
them in achieving their goals, and inculcate increased power levels. As described before,
the tour initiated by Samuel Hazer helped the employees in gaining global perspective in
acquiring development in individual and based on the company performance.
2. According to the context of participative leadership the three main weaknesses that this
leadership theory has is that the dependency on the employees, lack of control, possibility
of conflicts, for taking decisions can result in wrong decisions, which can completely
disrupt the operations. In the changing demands of market and customers, there are many
complex decisions that needs to be taken; employees with less insight and expertise can
take wrong decisions, which can hamper the successful operation of the company. A
democratic approach involve in a company’s operational activities, can also dilute the
quality of the services. The involvement of employees in decision-making processes also
slows the process in a considerable rate. This can be completely related to the lack of
product variations in HCA, as they have lack of skilled workforce and involvement of
them in taking decisions does not increase the product ranges, making the services and
products stagnant and unable to attract customer demands and market needs. Due to the
risks involvement, discussion of solving any risks with employees can rise in conflict, in
this process many conflicting opinions and thoughts can change the mind of the leaders,
which is major disadvantage of participative leadership.
3. The three recommendations that can be given in regards to leading an organization
effectively are as follows:
 The adaptation of situational leadership, in times of crises or solving a complex
situation (HCA Healthcare, Inc. (2020)). The leader of HCA can call for discussion

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among the experts who can solve a particular problem; this will also help in employee
engagement as well as finding an accurate solution to the problems faced by the
company and saving the company to be jeopardized.
 For solving the issue of understanding situations among employees, the leader can
conduct surveys, in which they can verify every employee feeling, job satisfaction.
After the survey, the leader can provide training processes for his employees to
inculcate more innovative ideas and learn new things
 Applying pressure on the employees can also create huge scopes, as in this way the
leader can carve his employees in identifying their true potential Creating pressure
can also help in understanding employees capability in handling adverse situations,
which will further benefit the company in solving complex problems.
Conclusion
In the above discussion, the HCA health company has been scrutinized along with the
leadership styles followed by the present leader. It has been concluded that, Samuel Hazen the
present leader of the company follows participative leadership, which has created benefit as well
as drawn some drawbacks. A SWOT Analysis of the company as well the analysis of the
leadership has been well demonstrated

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References
Xu, J. H. (2017). Leadership theory in clinical practice. Chinese Nursing Research, 4(4), 155-
157(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnre.2017.10.001).
Dalluay, V. S., & Jalagat, R. C. (2016). Impacts of Leadership Style Effectiveness of Managers
and Department Heads to Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Performance on Selected Small-Scale
Businesses in Cavite. Philippines. International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational
Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB), 2(2), 734-751.
Almaaitah, M. F., Harada, Y., Sakdan, M. F., & Almaaitah, A. M. (2017). Integrating Herzberg
and Social Exchange Theories to Underpinned Human Resource Practices, Leadership Style and
Employee Retention in Health Sector. World Journal of Business and Management, 3(1), 16.
Sagnak, M. (2016). Participative leadership and change-oriented organizational citizenship: The
mediating effect of intrinsic motivation. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 16(62).
HCA Healthcare, Inc. (2020). Retrieved 24 March 2020, from http://fernfortuniversity.com/term-
papers/swot/nyse/1783-hca-healthcare--inc-.php
hcahealthcare.com (2020). Retrieved 24 March 2020, from https://hcahealthcare.com/
healthcarecouncil.com (2020). Retrieved 24 March 2020, from
https://healthcarecouncil.com/hcas-incoming-ceo-on-what-makes-a-good-leader/
investor.hcahealthcare.com (2020). Retrieved 24 March 2020, from
https://investor.hcahealthcare.com/annual_reports
hcaproducts.com (2020). Retrieved 24 March 2020, from https://www.hcaproducts.com.my/

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