Practical Leadership Philosophy

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Cross posted from another forum.   A Practical Leadership Philosophy for Today's PA Profession

By Dr. Roger D. Jones, PA-C Emeritus

 

It is exciting times for PAs. PA leadership has demonstrated a change in their leadership philosophy. Organizations like PAs for Tomorrow (PAFT) and the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) including its constituent chapters and specialty organizations have changed from the traditional leadership philosophy, specifically regarding "Optimal Team Practice." This shift has been slow in coming, and there is a dire need to continue the momentum. Some PA leaders still practice an old leadership philosophy as described in the following paragraphs. This is my personal views of traditional leadership contrasted with the new. My suggestion is that traditional leaders, well, there is a new group of kids in town.

 

Old ideas give way slowly. They are habits. Deeply ingrained attitudes about what we like and don't like. 

 

We must not strive to provide new and better answers to old questions, rather we must address new issues; critical issues raised by current developments and changes in our profession. Until recently we have most often failed to give up traditional concerns. We did not manage to give up old-fashioned, but now outdated methods. 

 

Traditional PA leaders are still too conservative. They fail to come to grips with new problems, new realities. Traditional leadership methods increasingly have little practical value. Leaders who fail to pursue ongoing issues in the PA profession such as the PA title have little practical value. Ignoring issues has been done, and that strategy of abandonment is no longer called for. Forming committees that ultimately produce results that have little or no significance in the lives of PAs is reducing its function to a kind of busy work. It isn't that the committee's function is false; rather the current professional environment renders its results useless and insignificant. 

 

The problems surrounding the PA title and other unresolved issues are rooted in actual PA experiences. The solution requires vision, imagination, and reflection. And these functions apart from action modify nothing and thus resolve nothing. Failure to take no practical measures on some important issues will thus solve nothing.

 

Until all leaders identify themselves with professional problems, which are supposed to depend upon reality as such, its hands are tied. Leadership recovers itself when it stops being a device for dealing with the problems and becomes a method, cultivated by the leadership, for dealing with the problems of PAs. Our leadership must begin with the actual problems of PAs. The leadership must aim to solve them through imagination, reflection, experiment, and action. When it fails to confront practical problems in this way, the leadership will be perceived as remote and useless. 

 

Historically, the main characteristic of PA leadership was an absence of any integrated outlook. The formation of a new coherent view of the PA profession based on facts and actual social and professional conditions has greatly improved, but there are still issues to be addressed. The growing sense of unsolved professional problems (NCCPA) may shake our faith in PA leadership. The result may be disillusionment about recommended ideas. The suggestion of helpful ideas concerning our title has been taken by some in leadership to be an admission that one is living in a realm of fantasy. Because the hopes and expectations of the past have been discredited, there is sometimes cynicism about leadership's plans and policies.

 

Professional change is here as a fact. Transformations in medicine, economics, politics, and the PA profession are occurring so swiftly that the imagination is baffled in an attempt to understand them. These changes have caught some of us mentally unprepared. Some PAs still cling to outdated beliefs that no longer fit our circumstances. Because of this lack of mental preparation, the impact of swiftly occurring changes has produced confusion and uncertainty. As a result, the profession is often a house divided against itself.

 

Until recently, in thought and feeling, we have been living in some bygone era, although physically we belong to the present. What is the cause of this split and contradiction? It seems that traditions and institutions sometimes count more than individual capacity in explaining things. By being caught mentally unprepared, our older creeds have become institutionalized. The more we depart from them in reality, the more loudly does some leaders proclaim them. In effect, some treat them as a magic formula, by repeating them often enough they hope to ward off the evils of the new situation. Dependency is our aegis, dependency is our aegis, and dependency is our aegis. Physicians will protect us, physicians will protect us, and physicians will protect us. This chorus was sung by many PA leaders for most of the life of our profession.  

 

We have a relatively young profession, but some PAs have an old mentality. It is a profession with two mentalities. One is a survival of the beliefs and standards of the early PAs. The other is an expression of the instincts, practices, and advancements of the younger PAs. PAs are several years behind the times. This division may be found symbolized in our professional title. The physician "assistant" title still exists for an advancing and skilled practitioner.  

 

Our leadership should be an active tool that helps us live more fulfilling professional lives, to contribute to the real world surrounding us. The primary task of leadership should be to help get rid of the useless baggage that blocks our path to change and strive to open the road that leads to the future. PA leadership is a PA activity. It is everything we do in our profession. PA leadership is also a thoughtful, purposeful action that responds to our problems and seeks to solve them. PA problems grow out of stresses and strains in the PA's life. Any leadership unconnected to ordinary experience wastes our time on artificial problems. A test of the value of any leadership can be determined by asking the following question. Does leadership's solutions, when referred back to our ordinary life experience, make dealing with life more fruitful or, does it make the experience more opaque than it was before?  

 

Did leadership's solution to the title issue make the life of PAs experiencing the problem any better or did it blur the matter even more?

 

It is the fact that some leaders terminate in conclusions that make it necessary to discredit and condemn the process which leads common sense to question the actions of these leaders. Leadership should be thought of as an inventive method of empirical inquiry rather than a system of beliefs. The empirical method lets us predict consequences and reach our goals. Leadership is a practical philosophy that requires PA problems to be subjected to scientific inquiry – not just ignored or delayed.

 

There is new PA leadership now, and the profession is marching forward rather than marking time. The passing of Optimal Team Practice is a giant leap forward, but the real work now begins. There is now a new group of PA leaders. It is an exciting time for the profession. Let's keep the momentum going.