Robert Brenner, MD, president and CEO of Paramus, N.J.-based Valley Health System, knows what it means to lead amid uncertainty — a lesson he traces to his first job in the Air Force during the Gulf War.
Dr. Brenner joined Valley Health in 2015 as senior vice president and chief physician executive. He became president of the system in January 2024 and CEO in July, overseeing The Valley Hospital, Valley Home Care and Valley Medical Group.
Becker’s connected with Dr. Brenner to learn about his leadership philosophy, strategies and lessons from earlier in his career.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What was your first job? Biggest thing you learned in it?
Dr. Robert Brenner: I trained as a physician and went through a residency in family medicine, but my first real job was as a physician in the U.S. Air Force. A few months into active duty, the Gulf War erupted, and I was soon thereafter deployed to Spain. I was put in charge of an emergency room, managing triage for potential incoming wounded, and serving as a liaison for the Spanish health authorities.
Here I am, just finishing residency as a newly trained physician — it was incredible that I had all this responsibility. In just the eight weeks I was deployed, I learned quite a bit about leadership and how to lead amid profound uncertainty. The stakes were high, so I also learned that even though you may think something’s really challenging, you can rise to the occasion.
The other part was the enormity of the situation and the momentum that the military had in a singular mission, and it was humbling. It taught me that in leadership, you can bring people together to move forward with such great momentum, and the power of a team working together. I’ve also always felt that it’s not about a title in leadership; it’s about stepping up when it counts and just doing your job. I constantly remind people now in my own job today that they may be hesitant to say something just because I have the CEO title, but that doesn’t matter. We all have to do our jobs. That first job — that eight-week, intense experience — taught me a lot.
Q: If you could go back in time 10 years, what would you tell yourself to start doing or start learning about?
RB: I was previously the chief medical officer of a large multispecialty group, and I did a lot in terms of population health and value-based management. When I was hired at Valley Health System, one of the things that they wanted me to do was put in place some of those capabilities.
The idea I had was to create a clinically integrated network, and I went to create this population health department. I got a lot of opposition, which I couldn’t even anticipate, and really what I underestimated — and when I look back, I spent a lot of time debriefing myself on — was, “Why did I get so much resistance there? This makes perfect sense.” I didn’t recognize that there were cultural differences from where I was coming and the organization I entered, that I had to develop trust before accelerating change, and that I needed to overcommunicate and build bridges for many of the stakeholders and respect the opinions and perspectives of the people that I was working with.
I read a lot about change management after that, and realized that I made some errors, and would have done it a little differently. I was anxious to get going and do what I was hired to do, but the reality is I needed to take some more time and really dot my I’s and cross my T’s as I went forward.
Q: If you could share one strategy with other health system CEOs, what would it be?
RB: What’s so important is to build trust and invest in your team, stay grounded and defer to the expertise of the team around you. Although you have a title that you could say, “I’m the one to make that decision,” I make decisions with the people around me. There’s some times where I’ll make unilateral decisions, but that’s very rare. Most of the time, I’m deferring to the expertise of the team. I’m encouraging the dissent of the team, and I also really try to allow myself to be authentic, and at times you have to show your vulnerability, because we’re all people in this, and we’re all trying to do the right thing — and the trust goes both ways. You have to trust your team and their expertise as well.
Q: Picture this. It’s the first day of your retirement. What, if anything, do you worry about regretting? What do you hope your legacy will be?
RB: I want my legacy to be that I’ve left this organization in a better place than when I started. That has to do with succession planning and making thoughtful decisions about long-range planning for the organization, and I want to make sure that the things that we put in place are enduring, operationally sound, mission-driven and resilient.
