Rowitz On Leadership

It is not a secret that we expect our leaders to have more knowledge and experience than we have. In my leadership book, I discussed this briefly and mentioned that being a knowledge synthesizer was one of the more important leadership practices. At the recent Keeneland Conference in Lexington, Kentucky in early April, 2014 on public health systems and practice research, several of the key speakers discussed the importance of informatics in public health. It was also discussed that an economics perspective as well as an information perspective allows us to compare agencies in a way that a programmatic perspective does not. It was clear to me that leaders need to become more proficient in the use of data of various kinds in order to create a stronger evidence base for public health to guide our future work.

Leaders need to interpret data that is both quantitative and qualitative for their direct reports, their partners, and their service populations. Leaders also need to connect data with various theoretical and conceptual frameworks. Informatics also will have different implications when viewed through an assessment lens. Interpretation for the assurance perspective as well as the policy development one will also lead to different interpretations. How information is presented also has an important values and emotional impact set of reactions. Leaders need to know their audience and react to the emotional interpretation of information by their audience. Information gets filtered through our emotions and we react from anxiety, fear, confusion, and other feelings. Almost anything that appears to disrupt our quality of life must be mediated and interpreted by our leaders.

Thus, leaders need to not only synthesize knowledge and data for us, they need to understand the various emotional factors that can affect the presentation of information. They also need to be able to deal with these emotional reactions that can impact the interpretation of the knowledge presented.