Emerging Women Executives in Health Care

Program Overview

STRENGTHEN THE CAREER PATH OF FEMALE EXECUTIVES

Health care executives must overcome diverse and complex challenges to improve the health of patients and populations. In an industry of escalating demands to improve quality and access while managing costs, addressing these issues requires leadership skills specific to the health care environment.

This health care leadership development program focused on women, is designed to provide you with both the knowledge and the skills you need to face the challenges of leading complex health care organizations. This program provides leaders with the opportunity to be in a classroom among female executives and those that support the advancement of women leaders from around the world and focuses on helping women in senior positions develop effective leadership strategies to improve organizational performance.

As a participant, you will develop the leadership skills needed to manage health care organizations efficiently and effectively by exploring topics that include:

• Applying effective leadership styles
• Building and leading teams
• Emotional intelligence
• Influencing with and without authority
• Managing and sustaining change
• Negotiation and conflict resolution
• Organizational politics
• Performance improvement strategies
• Strategic planning

As you move higher in your organization, you face a greater breadth of challenges. These require superior leadership and management skills and comfort dealing with ambiguity. This program will provide you with a set of tools and ways of thinking to become a more effective leader. The program will explore:

• The impact of the policy environment on health care systems and the challenges and opportunities facing your organization as a result. This will better equip you to think more creatively about your own and your leadership group’s roles and responsibilities in a rapidly changing environment and to prioritize more effectively
• Cutting edge research on women and leadership to learn what underlies women’s leadership styles and practices and to enhance your own effectiveness as a leader
• Structural, political, cultural and individual attributes of organizations and how recognizing opportunities, managing constraints, and understanding individual and organizational values alignment can enhance your effectiveness
• Methods to recognize opportunities, managing constraints, and understanding how individual and organizational values alignment can enhance your effectiveness
• Skills and strategies in negotiation, managing conflict, coalition-building, and influencing—key attributes fundamental to successful organizational life
• Organizational performance improvement techniques, particularly when such critical values as patient safety and innovation compete for resources and focus
• New management, leadership and change frameworks, models and best practices

Leading effectively requires a deep understanding of yourself, how you operate, how your organization operates, and how your work impacts the greater organization. In this program, you will develop a greater understanding of your organization – its formal structure, culture, and politics – and learn how to maneuver within this structure to your advantage. Participating in this course will help you bridge the gaps in your understanding, strategies, and skills, and help prepare you for the next stage in your career.

Objectives & Highlights

A Hands-on Approach to Leadership Development Focused on Women

This program will be conducted through the case study method pioneered at Harvard University, as well as through lectures, presentations, small and large group discussions, and hands-on exercises. Personal reflection is also an important part of this program.

Participants will prepare in advance for discussions with faculty and peers. Readings and guest lecturers enhance particular learning objectives of the program. Finally, since an important part of the learning takes place between program participants, the program will provide opportunities for informal and formal exchanges, networking, and conversations with colleagues and faculty over meals and events throughout the program.

Participants will complete a personal assessment survey in advance of the on-campus program. Results from the personal assessment will provide a critical backdrop to the leadership and management classes, and frame the personal strategic plans that participants will create by the end of the program.

Learning Objectives

This program is designed to engage women leaders in strengthening their knowledge, skills, and capabilities necessary to effectively lead complex health care and health related organizations. As a participant in this program, you will:

• Acquire the knowledge needed to create a meaningful institutional vision and supporting achievable strategic plan
• Develop a deeper awareness of personal leadership and management styles to yield more effective communication, better manage conflict and engage in challenging yet productive, conversations
• Enhance your capability to lead sustainable change
• Learn to maximize your networks through productive alliances and partnerships
• Understand individual motivation, team dynamics, and how to lead teams effectively

Credits and Logistics

Please note: a laptop or other portable personal computing device is strongly recommended for course enrollees.

Accommodations

Program Check-in

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
FXB Building
651 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
617.432.2100

The program takes place at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, located in the heart of the Harvard Longwood Campus in Boston. Public transportation is also readily available to the city’s many shopping districts, museums, and restaurants.

For directions, please click here.

Continuing Education Credit

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health designates this live activity for a maximum of 15 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health will grant 1.5 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for this program, equivalent to 15 contact hours of education. Participants can apply these contact hours toward other professional education accrediting organizations.

All credits subject to final agenda.

All participants will receive a Certificate of Participation upon completion of the program.

Faculty

Current faculty, subject to change.

Karen A. Curley, MSW, MPH

Program Director

June 3 – 6, 2025

Vice President
Client Services
The Leadership Development Group

Instructor
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Agenda

Who Should Apply

This program is designed for women executives from around the world and those who support them at hospitals, hospital systems, physician practices, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, ministries of health, health care foundations, and other health care-related organizations, including:

• Executives, senior vice presidents, vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, department directors, and other executives reporting to the c-suite or senior vice president level
• Medical directors, clinical chiefs of service, and other senior managers who have responsibility for planning, allocating resources, managing staff, and developing policy
• Women leaders in compliance, human resources, communications, marketing, operations, or other administrative functions

While the program is focused on women (and those who identify as women) executives, the program is open to all executives who meet the admissions criteria.

Develop an Unmatched Network of Women Health Care Leaders

Health care is often seen as an industry dominated by women; yet, despite women making up 65 percent of the health care workforce, only 30 percent of C-suite teams and 13 percent of CEOs in the industry are female.¹

Program participants will be executives in health care from diverse backgrounds, functions, and organizations from around the world, tied together by their commitment to improving health care through leadership. By bringing together women who are senior leaders in health care, this course offers a truly rich experience. During this program, you will develop productive alliances and enduring partnerships with female executives.

This program offers a small, personal setting where you will learn as much from your fellow executive education participants as from program faculty as you exchange valuable insights and best practices. You will leave Harvard having developed a global network of leading women you can rely on for guidance as you return home and implement what you learned.

[1.] Women In Healthcare Leadership 2019, Oliver Wyman