Name: Christina Bell

Title: Sr. Director, Telehealth and Digital Patient Engagement

Organisation: Pediatrix Medical Group

Ms. Bell is transformational leader creating a personalized narrative by weaving digital innovation into the healthcare experience. Passionate leader with 20+ years of healthcare experience, 10 years of retail and customer service, plus 10 years of people management experience. Leading teams through various perspectives and creation of strategic organizational alignment and product/programmatic deployment to rapidly deliver results through the use of lean, agile and waterfall methodologies. Emphasis on elevating results focused on equity diversity, anti-racism. Comfort of leading within a complex multidimensional organizational structure.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

I hope Christina's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

I find the most challenging aspect of being a leader in healthcare today to be managing competing priorities. Resource constraints, reduction in budgets and growing demands require constant review and adjustments to oversight of product and program deliverables.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

I became a leader through a journey of several management positions. I struggled initially becoming a people manager, as I lacked guidance and understanding of what a true leader was. Over the years, I sought out mentorship, pursued a graduate degree in Healthcare Administration, obtained professional coaching and spent very intentional time developing an array of skills to empower me; to lead from different perspectives, listen more and find better ways of navigating complex and sensitive issues. From these lessons, I've developed a comprehensive set of tools that enable me to lead more effectively.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

Wake up, have some tea and breakfast, work through my email and then work into meetings. From there, I try to take a break mid-day, for lunch and some sort of fitness activity, such as a brief walk or workout. I've found the break in my day helps me with my mental health and general wellbeing and ensures I maintain a healthier lifestyle. Then I finish my workday. Take my dog for short walk, walk a second time with my partner, complete some chores, dinner then wind-down time with my partner or some light reading then to bed.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

The most recent lesson that I have been reminded of is the value of kindness. It's easy as a leader to be in a rush or push organizational priorities downstream. It's priceless to pause, reflect, understand another person's perspective and lead with honesty and kindness.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

Switch is a book I read years ago and still find myself mentioning today. It speaks of many real-world examples of how people successfully implemented change into the workplace. It also speaks of an analogy of the elephant (a person's heart), rider(mindset/mind) and path (direction) and without the alignment of these items change management will not be successful.

It reminds me, as a leader my role is to create clarity in role and path, ensure there is a clear objective and tangible deliverable with each step forward as well as a meaningful reason that will drive the team forward.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

Don't be afraid to advocate for yourself, you know your value better than anybody.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

People management can be challenging and very rewarding. I had an employee in a previous organization who was struggling with their role. They had been with the company for over a decade and were no longer satisfied with their role and felt like they were unproductive.

To retain the valued employee, in lieu of them quitting, I was able to connect with the employee and after a series of intentional conversations. I was able to move the employee to another opportunity within the organization, shifting the focus of work. Sometimes it's a matter of re-aligning an individual to a team or role that plays to their interest, passions or strengths and they will become the MVP of the team.