Leadership and people management for Cardiac Hospitals: cath lab leads, ICU heads and senior nurses
Cardiac units are led by clinicians who rose on skill, not on managing people. Practical sessions for cath lab leads and ICU in charges help them handle rosters, tired teams and conflict.
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Share your requirementsWhy leadership and people management matters in cardiac hospitals
The best interventional cardiologist is not always the best person to run a cath lab team. The best senior nurse may never have been taught how to settle a quarrel over night duty, give feedback on a mistake or tell a junior no. Heads of units pick this up as they go, and teams see the unevenness: one lab is steady, the one next door is tense, and good people ask to move.
Leadership training here is brief and rooted in the unit. It deals with the situations leads actually meet: sharing nights fairly, speaking up after a near miss, handling a senior who dominates, leading after a death in the ICU and reporting to the owner. It is delivered to the unit's leads together, so they can compare notes and support each other.
How to set it up
1. List the situations leads find hardest
Ask cath lab, CCU and theatre leads for three recent problems with people. Use these, with names removed, as the content.
2. Teach the basics of fair rosters
Show how to share nights, weekends and callouts openly, how to record swaps and how to explain a choice to a person who is unhappy.
3. Practise feedback after a near miss
Use role-play to show how to speak about a mistake with calm and fairness, and how to invite the team to learn from it.
4. Cover leading through a hard event
Discuss how to support a team after a death or a long arrest, who to speak to and when to rotate someone out. Involve a counsellor if you have one.
5. Meet monthly as a leads group
Leads meet for an hour to share one problem each and one idea that worked. The owner attends occasionally to listen.
Check these first
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These take an afternoon and use your own records.
- Ask each unit lead how they decided the last night duty swap.
- Note how many staff have asked to change units in the last year.
- Check whether any lead has had feedback on their people skills.
- Look at who steps in when a unit head is away.
GullyHR can do this with you. Read how we approach leadership and people management in general, or share your requirements and we will tell you where to start.
Questions owners ask
Yes, with practice and honest feedback. The skills are different from clinical ones, and many clinicians welcome a chance to learn them when it is offered as practical help.
Together for most topics, since they share problems, and separately for unit-specific matters. A leads group continues the learning after the sessions end.
Ask what would make it worth their time, and make the content practical. The owner attending shows the value placed on it.