Don was recently hired as the program director for a clinical outpatient program. The program has received low scores by their licensing and accrediting bodies for the last two (consecutive) audits. The previous program director attempted to have the clinicians increase their productivity; this meant not only seeing more clients but also preforming internal audits of their peers documentation in addition to several other administrative tasks. Staff have felt fatigued and overwhelmed, and when Don arrived, he immediately observed that staff seemed to be lacking motivation and appeared significantly disgruntled. Don set out to change the system and wanted to hear from the staff exactly what they felt needed to change. After gathering input from the staff, he decided to meet with them to develop a step-by-step approach to solving the problems that had been identified. He was careful not to overwhelm staff with seemingly more tasks, but aimed to empower them to be a part of the solution and thus created subgroups dedicated to work on certain problem areas. Don was very good at communicating his ideas, encouraging creative thinking, and also jumping in to doing tasks (i.e., he led by example).

Questions

1. What type of leadership style(s) is Don employing?
2. What are the key leadership traits and skills that will be needed to effectively foster change within the outpatient program, and for staff?
3. If you were in Dons position, what would your top three priorities be, and how would you go about tackling these top three priorities?