When Corewell Health began evaluating how to structure its lab services strategy, President and CEO Tina Freese Decker said leadership first had to answer a foundational question: Should the system pursue a partnership model?
For Ms. Decker, the answer was not immediately clear. Partnering would require the system to move beyond its instinct to own and control operations internally. At the same time, healthcare organizations nationwide are facing mounting financial and operational pressure, forcing leaders to rethink long-standing assumptions about how care is delivered and managed.
Rather than walking into the room with a predetermined answer, she said leadership opened the discussion around what would best serve patients and the community.
“I really wanted to have that discussion, and it was helpful to be able to drive that forward,” Ms. Decker told Becker’s. “I wanted people to be able to lean in and discuss what was on their mind.”
Unlike the acute crisis of the pandemic, today’s healthcare pressures are arriving in smaller but more sustained waves — from reimbursement uncertainty and workforce shortages to shifting care models and rising operational complexity. Several health system leaders told Becker’s that acknowledging uncertainty has become an increasingly important leadership skill in today’s environment.
Leaders said admitting uncertainty has helped organizations navigate operational pivots, encourage employee candor, strengthen transparency and make complex strategic decisions more collaboratively.
Becker’s spoke with Ms. Decker; Andrea Walsh, president and CEO of Bloomington, Minn.-based HealthPartners; and Joanne Conroy, MD, president and CEO of Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth Health, about how their views on humility have evolved and what leadership traits will matter most as healthcare organizations navigate today’s pressures.
Humility as a leadership tool
All three leaders described humility as essential to building trust, encouraging candor and navigating uncertainty.
For Dr. Conroy, humility starts with accessibility. Dartmouth Health is a nine-hospital academic health system with more than 16,000 employees.
“I am never too busy to talk to anyone about their care experience or their work,” Dr. Conroy said. “As a CEO, you are in service to people. You are not above it.”
An experience during medical school at Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina shaped her perspective on leadership.
She recalled becoming frustrated after waiting in line at a bank behind nine or 10 people and later complaining about it at home.
Dr. Conroy said her then-husband responded: “The minute you think you’re better than those people waiting in line is the time you don’t deserve to be a physician.
“I have carried that with me throughout my career.”
Ms. Walsh similarly described humility as foundational to effective leadership at HealthPartners, an integrated health system and health plan serving more than 1.4 million medical and dental health plan members nationwide.
“In healthcare, you need to lead with empathy and humility,” Ms. Walsh said. “Your team must be able to tell you the truth. You need to hear the good and the bad, claim victories humbly and recognize challenges.”
She said her perspective on humility has evolved over time.
“Early in a career, there is a temptation to demonstrate capability,” Ms. Walsh said. “But the leaders I admire elevate their teams, recognize others’ work and are open about their own gaps.”
For Ms. Decker, humility has become increasingly important as healthcare leaders navigate rapid change and uncertainty.
“It’s important, especially right now, when we’re in a world where so many different scenarios and elements are happening, that we are OK to say, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out,’ or ‘I’ll ask,’ or ‘I’ll listen and understand,'” Ms. Decker said.
She also emphasized the importance of creating an environment where employees feel comfortable speaking openly.
“You have to create an environment where people feel comfortable bringing things up,” she said.
Leading through uncertainty
All three CEOs pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic as a defining example of leading through uncertainty. But leaders said today’s environment presents a different kind of challenge — one defined less by a single acute crisis and more by sustained operational, financial and workforce pressures.
During the pandemic, Dartmouth Health shut down roughly 75% of its business after leaders determined existing care delivery models had become unsafe for patients, employees and the community.
“My CFO and I went to incident command because we felt the situation might be exceeding their scope,” Dr. Conroy said. “We listened and said, ‘We have to do this,’ even though the financial loss could be breathtaking.”
Dartmouth also chose not to furlough employees during the pandemic.
“We knew we would emerge from this and would need our people,” Dr. Conroy said. “Employees came in and took on different roles. Operating room nurses worked as housekeepers doing deep cleaning. Physicians handed out masks and sanitizer at the front door.”
At HealthPartners, Ms. Walsh said today’s financial pressures are similarly forcing organizations to rethink long-standing assumptions around care delivery and coverage. Many systems are simultaneously navigating persistent workforce shortages, margin pressure and accelerating outpatient migration.
For example, as organizations nationwide prepare for Medicaid eligibility changes tied to federal legislation projected to reduce Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, Ms. Walsh said leaders increasingly must acknowledge up front that they do not have all the answers.
“We have led with more transparency, sharing results and inviting colleagues to help solve problems,” Ms. Walsh said. “Ideas come from across the organization.”
She also pointed to lessons HealthPartners learned while encouraging preventive screenings and vaccinations.
“Even when science is clear, patients may not trust the message,” Ms. Walsh said. “We sought input on how to communicate effectively. That has been both sobering and promising.”
At Dartmouth Health, uncertainty around long-term care delivery strategy ultimately reshaped the organization’s expansion plans.
For years, leaders debated whether to build an acute care hospital in southern New Hampshire. But after reevaluating broader industry trends, the organization pivoted toward expanding ambulatory care instead.
“We are seeing a significant shift to ambulatory care at a speed none of us predicted,” Dr. Conroy said. “The board went from feeling we needed to build a hospital to being grateful we did not.”
At Corewell Health, the discussion around lab operations ultimately led the organization to partner with Quest Diagnostics. Corewell Health, a 21-hospital health system based in Grand Rapids, Mich., finalized a lab joint venture and hospital lab management agreement with Quest in January. The joint venture, Diagnostic Lab of Michigan, is 51% owned by Quest and 49% by Corewell Health, with Quest managing lab operations across Corewell Health hospitals.
Choosing a partner required the organization to move beyond its instinct to own and control operations internally.
“But to get to that point, we had to get past our ego, and we had to say it’s OK that we would partner with others and we wouldn’t always do it ourselves,” Ms. Decker said. “That conversation was a tough one to have in the room.”
Another recent example involved Priority Health, the system’s insurance arm in Michigan. Leaders are rolling out Epic for Priority Health as part of broader efforts to better integrate care delivery and coverage.
Rather than prescribing a fixed approach from the outset, Ms. Decker said leaders opened discussions around how to best serve both patients and health plan members.
“We’re saying, ‘This is what we want it to have for our members and for the people that provide that care and the coverage together,'” Ms. Decker said. “We’re having those conversations and really healthy debate about how we build this so that we can get it right for the people we’re serving.”
Ms. Decker said effective leaders must also be willing to revisit decisions as new information emerges.
“You’re making decisions based on the available data and information that you have at the time,” she said. “If something comes up that would really change that approach, I think it’s imperative that, as a leader, you come back and say, ‘We have new information.'”
What this era will demand from leaders
In addition to humility, CEOs highlighted adaptability, communication and transparency as traits the most effective leaders will share when looking back at this period in healthcare.
As Ms. Decker put it, leaders must create a “learn-it-all, not know-it-all” culture.
“You have the adaptability that when you learn something new and it may change your perspective, you’re able to change that and move people along with it,” she said.
Dr. Conroy similarly pointed to transparency and shared decision-making. During a recent organizationwide meeting focused on financial challenges and operational changes, she said leaders openly acknowledged uncertainty around the outcome of an external analysis while emphasizing that decisions would not happen behind closed doors.
“People felt energized because they had a sense of agency,” Dr. Conroy said. “When people look back, what will stand out is the innovation that continues to improve care.”
At Becker's 4th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, taking place November 2–5 in Chicago, more than 1,500 hospital and health system executives tackle decisions that determine whether organizations thrive or merely survive: protecting margins under cost pressure, choosing where to grow, renegotiating payer relationships, stabilizing the workforce and proving real ROI on technology. This is where leaders work through them together, face-to-face. Apply for complimentary registration now.