Week 4- Theories in Action (2/2)

During week four of my internship program, I felt a personal breakthrough. As may be expected when starting any job, it takes some time to get oriented, meaningful assignments, and feel that your contributions are valuable. I was able not only able to experience these things but understand what were the leadership theories and organizational factors at hand. Week 3, I had mentioned that there has not been as much progress in my team’s data analysis yet as the client’s data is heavily skewed and unorganized. However, there has been significant progress in this area. I hypothesis leadership theories that have helped improve this process are components of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory.

Leader-member exchange theory conceptualizes leadership as a process that is centered on interactions between leaders and followers. When you look at consulting in nature, it is in essence a complex and continuing LMX relationship. There are LMX relationships between the internal team but ultimately the more challenging LMX relationships are between Guidehouse and the client. As Guidehouse serves to be an advisor and leader to the client, there may be personal and political conflicts between the leaders of the client and their support staff. This definitely has been the case for the client I am serving.

Since the client is a safety-net hospital, no one has held them accountable for how they are spending their money. The government and community’s tax dollars support the system, thus their processes and efficiencies are fluid with no structure and organization. This has caused much political controversy with the client’s leadership about how they move forward as an organization while maintaining their strong mission of serving the community. As leaders in this LMX relationship, GH has worked hard to eliminate themes and feelings of in vs out groups that are often experienced in LMX relationships. They have done this by working collaboratively with the client such as inviting them to internal meetings to give input on workstreams and deliverables.

An instance of this that stood out to me that the Director of the project explained was that whenever she starts a new client engagement, she scopes out who are the stakeholders who are the most skeptical/tough. Then she takes the effort to get to know them and understand why they are skeptical or tough. After she finds this information out, she works to address it. She explained an example with a board member who was known for being “the hard guy” in the room. After she learned that he had an extensive background and owned a  healthcare anyaltics and finance company, she understood that he felt there was always a lack of operation structure and misusage of data. She appealed to him to make sure Guidehouse’s work will address this and work collaboratively with him and other stakeholders. Afterward, she heard from her supervisor that the board member was exclaiming how much he loved Guidehouse and its team. Apparently, he has never been as happy or excited about an outside company coming in. This shows how important eliminating in vs out-group themes and feelings can go within LMX relationships and processes. By taking additional effort and initiative to eliminate these themes, can build continued trust and respect amongst the follower and leader which will support leadership and project success.