Ethical Leadership Across the Health Professions: Building Trust and Accountability

In an era when healthcare systems face both public scrutiny and internal strain, the need for ethical leadership has increased tenfold and has become very urgent. Trust is the key to building a good caregiving institution.

While clinical skills and technological advancement are critical, the foundation of any effective healthcare system lies in the success of its ethical leadership.

Accountability and Trust Building in Healthcare

Accountability is a trait in which one is responsible for their own actions and words, as well as the consequences that follow. It plays a crucial part in a professional or leadership role.

It is not just about taking the blame or facing punishment for a certain situation. It is about effectively ensuring that people and institutions act in ethical ways, just, and are consistent with their responsibilities, and that they’re willing to face the consequences if the decisions they make turn out negatively.

Accountability in health professions would include:

Taking responsibility for outcomes, whether good or bad

For example, instead of attempting to deflect blame, the leadership should take ownership of their decisions and commit to improving their risk mitigation policies and protocols.

Being transparent about decisions and explaining the reasoning behind them

For example, holding a meeting with affected clients and staff to explain a decision, share the data that informed it, and discuss alternatives.

Correcting mistakes and making efforts to prevent future harm

For example, if there has been some sort of mistake that has jeopardized a patient’s safety or privacy, the organization or health professional will need to inform that individual immediately, apologize, update internal communication policies to eliminate the risk of the mistake occurring again, and if necessary, make staff training on confidentiality mandatory.

Creating systems that ensure fairness, ethics, and build trust

For example, introducing a formal grievance process, anonymous patient feedback forms, and an internal ethics board to review difficult cases, thus ensuring that ethical accountability becomes part of the organizational structure and not just a personal expectation to check off.

Without accountability, trust can lead to complacency, while in the absence of trust, accountability can create a feeling of fear. When balanced, they create a leadership style that safeguards patients and fortifies institutions.

Features like empathy, open communication, and teamwork are all made possible by trust. Accountability guarantees that power is used responsibly and that actions are consistent with values.

How to practice ethical leadership?

To sum it up, ethical leadership is not just personal integrity; it is systemic thinking. While personal integrity, like honesty, compassion, and moral courage, is essential, ethical leadership in healthcare goes far beyond individual behavior.

It requires understanding and shaping the systems, structures, and cultures within which care is delivered.

Some key practices include:

Transparency: It is important to share the thinking behind policies, and admit flaws when they occur so as to instill psychological safety and show you are credible.

A willingness to listen: Staff and patients, as well as the community at large, may raise concerns about certain practices, and leaders must listen and respond meaningfully, not just defensively.

Justice-oriented decision-making: Equity should be front-of-mind, not an afterthought; leaders must grapple with and carry forward inherent disparities related to access, treatment, and opportunity.

Moral mastery: Ethical decisions often involve some degree of risk, like reputational, institutional, or personal. Ethical leaders must accept and sit with uncertainty, and act regardless.

A New Standard for Leadership

Trust and accountability are not conceptual ideals; they are a way of organizing. Ethical leadership across the health professions means always matching intentions with actions, values with policy, and rhetoric with reality. It means holding oneself and their institution accountable to the people and communities they serve.

Healthcare, especially mental health care, will constantly face crises, from pandemics to political polarization, and while the way forward includes an increasing amount of disruptive innovation, it will not succeed unless it is grounded in ethical leadership, with a commitment to trust and accountability.