Mission Leadership Institute: Guiding deeper connections with purpose

[7 MIN READ]

In this article:

• Providence developed the Mission Leadership Institute (MLI) to guide caregivers to deeper connections with their purpose and work. 

• The MLI’s transformative programs are designed to cultivate exceptional leadership and are tailored to inspire and equip leaders at different stages of their careers.

• MLI has now achieved the completion of three cohorts through the academy and a fourth cohort will launch later this year.

Mission Leadership Institute: Guiding deeper connections with purpose

At Providence, our goal is not to simply provide top-quality health care, but to provide sacred encounters with patients and customers.

We believe that our caregivers are best suited for this when they are fully connected with themselves and their purpose. This leads to deeper connections with our Mission of being expressions of God’s healing love, steadfast in serving all, especially those who are poor and vulnerable.

“Our goal is increased experience and engagement with our Mission, and that experience would allow for people to feel a sense of belonging and inclusion as well as helping them to self-discover their meaning and purpose,” says Martin Schreiber, vice president, Providence’s Mission Leadership Institute.

With Schreiber’s leadership, Providence developed the Mission Leadership Institute (MLI) to guide caregivers to deeper connections with their purpose and work. While formation for senior leadership is a staple of Catholic health care, Providence is taking this a step further by offering MLI formation programs for all managers – through a nomination process – throughout the Providence family of organizations across seven states, and Providence Global Center in Hyderabad, India.

New insights on leadership

Danene Bourne, an associate vice president in Providence’s Finance Department, has been passionate about immersing herself in the Mission since joining Providence in 2019. She is a member of the academy’s most recent cohort.

“Working in finance, a lot of our caregivers don’t work in the hospitals, so I’m always looking for ways to enhance their experience and deepen their connection to the organization,” Bourne says. “I feel the institute is a valuable way to bring the Mission more into our team.”

Bourne has appreciated the unique view of leadership that Schreiber’s team provides through the academy.

“It’s refreshing to think about leadership from a whole-person perspective,” she says.

Justin Hurtubise, chief mission officer in Providence’s Inland Northwest Washington region, was in a strategy role when he helped Schrieber plan the MLI programs. He graduated from the first cohort in 2021, and he agrees about the impact of different perspectives.

“It’s one of the few times so many leaders get to work together across a broad spectrum,” Hurtubise says. “Sometimes we get isolated in our work, so to have an environment where we can collaborate is tremendously valuable. Many colleagues are facing similar situations, and this program gives us the chance to dialogue, problem-solve and just deepen ourselves.”

Addressing burnout through growth and self-discovery

These stories are Schreiber’s vision for every caregiver within the Providence family of organizations. With experience developing formation programs at other Catholic health care organizations, he joined Providence specifically to build programming for the entire workforce.

“Our country has a workforce crisis in health care, and with that is an awareness of the impact on human lives,” Schreiber says. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2023, 46% of health care workers reported feeling burned out, and 44% intended to look for new jobs. Those percentages are up from 32% and 33%, respectively, in 2018.

Further, a 2020-21 nationwide survey of physicians found that 40% of them had at least a moderate interest in leaving medicine. Hospital executive turnover rate ranged between 16 and 18% in 2022-23, which is an increase from pre-COVID.

The MLI’s transformative programs are designed to cultivate exceptional leadership and are tailored to inspire and equip leaders at different stages of their careers.

Mission Leadership Formation

The Mission Leadership Formation is dedicated to senior leaders and provides them with the tools needed to navigate the complexities of modern health care while staying true to the core values of Providence and the Catholic health ministry.

Mission Leadership Academy

The Mission Leadership Academy, on the other hand, has tracks of programming for emerging leaders and aspiring leaders in the organization’s Mission work. The academy features seven sessions over a yar and a half, each focusing on the seven Catholic health tenets. Participants also engage in sensory experiences designed to help them stay fully immersed in the moment.

Connecting with the work

Bourne says sensory exercise on stewardship was most challenging and impactful to her.

“Working in finance, with the economic situation we’ve had, it was hard to have some of those conversations, but it highlighted things for me in a different way,” Bourne says.

One of the stewardship topics was the abundance mindset of the Sisters of Providence and Sisters of St. Joseph as they built their ministries. Even when the Sisters had little in the way of funds or supplies, they had the mindset that what they had would be enough.

“Instead of focusing on what they didn’t have, the Sisters focused on how much they could do with what they did have, and they had faith that it would be enough,” she says. “It’s a different mindset and a good reminder that so much of it does come down to our perspective.”

Hurtubise has grown as a leader through the stewardship exercise on intuition. Second City, a renowned improvisation group from Chicago, led an exercise in which participants learned to respond to ideas with “yes/and” instead of “no/and.”

“Instead of saying ‘No, I do not like this idea, and I think this alternative is better,’ we were asked to say, ‘Yes, I appreciate this idea, and I think we should also consider this possibility,’” Hurtubise explains. “This framing of a response affirms a colleague’s ideas while also allowing articulation of your own perspective. As a leader, this has helped me build strong collaborative relationships, affirming others’ ideas while also ensuring my perspectives are heard and expressed. I have found people I work with more likely to buy into an idea when their own idea is acknowledged first.”

Leilani Beck, director of Community Service for Providence St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, California, was inspired by the community presence session. She participated in the first cohort of the academy for aspiring Mission leaders.

She and several others participated in a regional Meals on Wheels program, which provides meals to vulnerable populations who cannot leave their homes.

“It was a great way to put the Mission into practice,” Beck says. “If we say that we’re Providence and this is our Mission and values, then how do we put that into action?”

Her experience was amplified because this took place during the pandemic, and on a rainy day.

“We were there to serve, in the rain, and navigated the path together to become present with the community and one another,” Beck says.

Lessons from leaders in other fields

Schreiber and Providence leaders speak at each session, followed by a guest speaker, referred to as a luminary.

“We intentionally bring in outside voices. Together with our leaders, this gives a sense of recognition to our students, that they’re worth it,” Schreiber says. “Why not give people the best and brightest minds in all of leadership development and health care? Not just to the senior leaders but to the people on the ground. The luminaries bring a wider horizon of meaning and purpose, which everyone deserves. It’s a very different method than just giving access to those with a certain number of years of service or specific titles.”

Hurtubise says the luminaries are deeply appreciated by the academy participants.

“You feel like you’re in a community with the broader health care industry as a whole, and many of the luminaries have a global perspective as well,” he says. “They have phenomenal insights that we benefit from hearing.”

Beck found inspiration from the luminaries’ life experiences. She specifically mentions Dr. Carolyn Woo and her profound life experiences in Catholic healthcare.

“Dr. Woo reminded us to ‘be for others’ and to understand our impact on the communities we serve. This is a direct reflection on serving others without distinction and continuing to serve our dear neighbors,” Beck says.   

She also mentions Reverend Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who leads a ministry working with gang members in Los Angeles inner-city neighborhoods.

“He saw that these gentlemen and ladies needed justice,” she says of Boyle. “He’s an incredible beacon of community engagement and gathering.”

The academy includes a hybrid of in-person and broadcast sessions. Participants gather in regional pods to view the broadcast sessions, discuss what they learned, and then embark on the sensory experience that complements each session.

“The idea is that all of these elements would be translated to the whole organization and beyond,” Schreiber says. “Why couldn’t this be an offering for other Catholic systems or other organizations in general?”

MLI has now achieved the completion of two cohorts through the academy. Schreiber and his team will launch a fourth cohort later this year and are exploring ways to expand the program.