Rowitz On Leadership

It seems that it is necessary to stay on my soapbox for another month with another issue. Workforce development in public health and other human services fields is clearly important if our health professionals are to remain current, proactive, and improve community health outcomes over the long run. Collaboration is necessary if we are to address the critical concerns of training our colleagues. Workforce development does not belong to any one organization. Expertise does not exist in only one organization, in one consulting firm, or in one professional organization. Training needs to be seen as an evolving system like building an onion layer by layer. Each set of trainers adds a layer to the onion that leads to a more comprehensive approach to training with its important practice orientation. Thus, training and workforce development specifically must be viewed as a collaborative activity. Personal organizational agendas must not predominate in these workforce discussions. I have personally seen some governmental agencies, consulting firms, and organizations claim that they are the workforce development organization. At the federal level, each agency clearly has a role to play in adding another layer to the onion. At the professional organization level, an agency must work with multiple partners to make workforce development comprehensive and collaborative.

I have worked for almost twenty years on the training of public health leaders. Leadership development is clearly a critical component in workforce development. As health professionals, we are educated at the technical level to be expert in our chosen health professions. We are not trained to be managers or even leaders. We look for programs to teach us these skills when we move into higher administrative positions. I cannot understand how some of my professional colleagues do not see the connection between training managers and leaders as being a workforce development issue. All training is about being better at what we do. As mentioned above training of our professional colleagues is also a collaborative activity. We all learn from each others. Our training partners teach us new skills and approaches to leadership development. They teach us about new tools and resources. They offer us insights into new books with innovative approaches. I have tried to share my own experiences on this blog as well as books I have found useful, new tools that I have created for training, and special resources that my colleague friends may not know about. I also alert colleagues to other blogs and websites they may find useful. How can I be an effective trainer if I do not collaborate or learn from others.

The secret is in the collaboration if training programs are to be effective in training our colleagues. Personal agendas need to be pushed to the back burner. We need to build the workforce development onion together . We need to understand that management and leadership development programs are part of our overall workforce development agenda.