74% of Surgical Leaders Say This Is the Biggest Succession Challenge
“I left OR leadership this year due to no succession planning,” says Angie West, highlighting a critical issue in surgical leadership retention.
The Problem
Rachel Butt’s recent community poll on succession planning in surgical leadership confirmed this concern. When asked, “What is the biggest challenge in succession planning?” the results were clear:
- Retaining future leaders: 74%
- Preparing for complexity: 13%
- Identifying talent early: 11%
- Giving stretch assignments: 2%
Retention of future leaders is the dominant challenge.
Proven Retention Strategies
Two health systems have successfully improved retention for staff nurses, offering models that could apply to OR leaders:
- CommonSpirit Health: Their year-long residency program, combining training, coaching, didactic coursework, and mentorship, increased nurse retention from 60% to 86%.
- NYC Health and Hospitals: By focusing on professional development, recognition, and career advancement opportunities, they reduced turnover from 46% to 17.3%.
Applying Retention to Leadership
Retaining future OR leaders could yield similar cost savings, while also driving culture change and volume growth. But do the same strategies work for leaders as for staff nurses?
Jayme Goodner suggests starting with encouragement: “Support during mentoring and collaboration about new ideas and how they see the role in comparison to how I see the role. They have a fresh lens.”
Next Steps
Next week, we’ll dive into Rachel’s poll data on “What retention strategy works?” and explore community stories about effective retention strategies for future OR leaders. By applying these insights, we can build stronger teams, address retention challenges, and unlock downstream benefits.
Best,
CEO of Whitman Partners
The search firm for Directors of Surgical Services
