Rodney Peyton OBE MD is a globally recognised trauma surgeon and is widely regarded as the world’s foremost surgical coach. Rodney has been driven by a goal to enhance surgical practise and assure improved patient outcomes throughout his medical career. Many important honours in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, and South Africa have recognised his influence as a leader, and he is the only person to be given fellowships in all five main Medical Royal Colleges in the UK and Ireland.
As an entrepreneur and businessman with over 30 years of experience investing worldwide, including in the United States, Europe, and Australasia, Rodney has been captivated by business concepts, systems, and project management techniques.
He is an author and a well-known international instructor, with clients such as the Asclepius and Helios Medical Groups, as well as Johnson & Johnson and PWC. He’s given keynote talks on themes as diverse as honesty, business culture, branding, evaluation, and financial systems. He is currently the head of the International Institute of Medical Project Management, and he attends worldwide masterminds where he and other extremely successful executives discuss their success techniques and continue to learn from one another.
A Wide View on Success
As per Rodney, success is in the eye of the beholder and it is based on emotion. He says, “Personal success is about who you become, in character and in mind.” He also believes that when success is based on pure achievement, it may be short-lived, for example, passing an exam or securing a new position. It is therefore harder to stay successful than it is to become successful, and so, like in nature, one either grows and develops or wilts and dies. There is no standing still.
Encouraging others to be their Best
Many managers in business rely on power within a defined hierarchical system, which frequently includes the right to recruit and fire employees. The ‘carrot and stick’ approach to motivation is particularly evident in industries like manufacturing, where routine output of items is connected to hours of labour and pay grades.
Rodney believes that in some organisations, such as health care, a ranking hierarchy is less evident, and the organisational structure is more complicated, requiring collaboration across many specialties, as integrating the numerous components introduces elements of uncertainty. True leaders can influence people at all levels of an organisation, even when there is no obvious leadership power. Senior management in health care, maybe more than in other industries, must empower everyone, regardless of position or title, to take initiative and undertake responsibility.
The best leaders in any field rarely rely on simple authority, also known as ” transactional ” management, except in emergency situations, and instead rely on their ability to influence others’ thoughts, feelings, actions, and behavior, guiding them toward a common goal or vision, a style of leadership known as ” transformational ” leadership. These leaders strive for gradual, evolutionary change and rely on influence rather than authority to help, encourage, and inspire people to work independently toward a common goal.
Being a Leader in Healthcare
Each sector of the health-care system must have systems in place to maximise resources and appropriately distribute treatment. At the individual level, consultants are in control of the patient’s treatment; however, an anesthesiologist, a physiotherapist, or a senior ward staff member may take over at times.
Every aspect of leadership is influenced by the environment. While the owner or Chief Executive of the business or health service has ultimate authority and responsibility, they cannot function unless there is clarity about levels of delegated authority throughout the organisation and in various departments, where a technician might be in charge of product development, a marketing executive of promotion, and so on. Trust is a two-way street, and just as employees must have faith in their leaders, leaders must have faith in their employees.
Decisions may be delegated to lower levels of the hierarchy if competency and a good culture are maintained across the workforce. Leadership can trust that workers have the integrity, values, and competence to make proper decisions.
Essential Leadership Qualities
Rodney finds that leaders must have unwavering clarity about their vision, purpose, and objectives. They realise achieving the vision takes a team approach, and that it must be relevant and inspirational so workers at all levels can connect with it and feel like they are contributing to something important. The finest organisations have shared ownership and buy-in from their employees, who are aware of the importance of their job in terms of its purpose and impact.
As a result, vision must represent principles and values all can agree on. It’s about an organization’s purpose and direction, and is a living document which has to be changed and examined on a regular basis. It is followed with a mission statement that explains how it will be accomplished.
Senior management and executives must thus coordinate and express the vision and mission, both internally and publicly, with a clear, consistent message and follow-through. It’s pointless to communicate one thing to employees and a completely other message to the rest of the world.
Strengthen the Company from the Inside
Vision, culture, and branding are the three key foundations of business greatness. The harmony between these three factors is responsible for how a company is viewed outside of the company, which has a direct impact on earnings.
Leaders must thus assume responsibility for the upkeep of integrity and culture in the workplace, paying special attention to employee value systems as well as their well-being. Leaders must provide an example for their employees by modelling and encouraging them to keep a happy attitude, practise daily self-care, and create appropriate work-life and home-life limits. It is critical that they make it their business to guarantee good cooperation at all levels, effectively engage personnel, and have frequent communication techniques that recognise dedication and accomplishment.
Corporate culture has the power to create or break a company, and a positive culture is critical to its success. It is all-pervasive and reflects the company’s basic standards for behaviour and attitude, so no matter what strategic direction emerges from the boardroom, it is true that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
To establish a clear route for delivery, culture must be firmly connected with the vision through on-going review and encoding in the mission statement. Businesses can only prosper if their customers succeed.
Significance of Branding
While culture influences an organization’s internal health, branding reflects how a company is seen and assessed by the public. The key to persuasion in obtaining new business is branding, which is created either via reputation or affiliation. Rodney asserts, “Customers engage with you to build your reputation, which may be favourable or bad. A good reputation takes years to establish, but it may be rapidly tarnished if a consumer has a negative experience. Reputation must therefore be constantly promoted and guarded.”
Employees represent the company or service through the customer interface, and they are branded as a result of their association with it. Working for a reputable firm, as judged by the community, rubs off on the employees and provides them credibility, which gives them a leg up when it comes to persuasion, also known as sales.
How to Handle Shortcomings!
According to Rodney, the objective of health care is to meet the health requirements of people, but how this is accomplished in the public sector differs from how it is accomplished in a private health care organisation. Because of the quickly shifting priorities necessary to handle the demands for intensive care during the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, the government had to make unpleasant decisions, causing non-urgent cases to be postponed in order to transfer resources to intensive care.
For the past 18 months, Covid safety precautions have had an influence on the quantity and quality of treatment, and service catch-up will take years. Most firms had to adjust in the same way, and many of those without strong creative leaders who could quickly adapt to changing conditions have either lost substantial business opportunities or closed entirely.
Effective change management has always required mechanisms for strong, continuous communication, and the workforce must be reminded of the vision’s basic purpose and how it must adapt to changing circumstances.
Go with the Flow
Managing change’s disruption and resolving difficulties as they occur are unavoidable leadership tasks. Change is continuous, and leaders must continue to learn and grow in order to keep their organisations current with changes and context, or else they will slip behind the competition.
Leaders require a strong peer network of other executives, even from other industries, with whom they can bounce ideas and receive appropriate criticism. The environment is always changing, therefore having the chance to exchange experiences is essential. It’s vital to remember that although a wise man learns from his own experiences, a genius learns from others’ experiences.
All learning occurs when people are uncomfortable, and great leaders must be able to anticipate problems and push themselves out of their comfort zones to come up with fresh solutions. The ability to effect change in a group, an organisation, or a larger society is the main differentiator between personal achievement and leadership success. In the last two years, organisational leadership has been defined by the ability to adapt to fast changing global, national, and local conditions, which has been the main deciding factor as to which businesses have survived and which have perished.
That concluded our featured interview with Rodney. Certainly, his coaching experience and insights show why he is recognised globally as the world’s foremost surgical coach, has been regarded as one of the world’s top trauma surgeons and been voted several times ‘Expert Witness of the Year’ in terms of his Medico-Legal Practice. His teachings and coaching are a valuable resource to those in senior positions who wish to continue growing and developing their knowledge and skills to the benefit of their organisation, their peers and staff.
Rodney is a sought-after keynote speaker on a wide variety of corporate issues. For more information on any of these topics or to discuss potentially speaking at your organisation or events, please visit www.rpeyton.com to schedule an informal discussion.
