After having placed more than 150 medical directors, we’ve discovered a number of key qualities that separates average medical directors from legendary ones. Medical directors play an important role in providing guidance and leadership in a healthcare organization, ensuring the delivery of quality health care. Because they play such an integral part of health care, it’s imperative that companies hire exceptional talent in these roles.
This post aims to uncover 3 key qualities that all great medical directors have in common.
Quality #1: Personality
Out of all of these qualities on our list, hiring a medical director with a great personality is an absolute must. While degrees and certifications are required, hiring a medical director with a good personality is extremely important. Soft-skills are the interpersonal attributes needed to succeed in this role, and a successful medical director will have wonderful people skills.
Soft skills, like personality, are notoriously hard to assess, but our team of talented recruiters have years of experience in identifying these critically important behaviors. They know how to use behavioral interview questions that center around real-life experiences. Balancing office work and staff engagement can be challenging, but a medical director with a great personality is able to foster meaningful relationships that aid in delivering excellent patient care.
Quality #2: Communication Skills
Medical directors need to be excellent communicators. In order to do their jobs well, they need to be precise in delivering their objectives and expectations in a manner that resonates with their teams. Medical directors often deal with delicate issues and knowing how to best address these situations is invaluable.
They need to be able to maintain open lines of communications with multiple departments because they often act as a liaison between these groups. Medical directors must be able to gracefully communicate and influence the outcomes for important healthcare initiatives that greatly impact patient care.
Quality #3: Leadership
“A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.” –Douglas MacArthur
A great leader helps people reach their goals, and a medical director with this trait leads their organization to success. Medical directors have to make hard choices within their organizations. In order to be effective, they need to earn the respect of their team, and then inspire them to be their best. A great medical director, like a great leader, will do whatever is necessary in service to the greater cause of the patient care.
Conclusion
While many of these qualities are difficult to uncover, our team of recruiting experts specialize in finding, screening and ultimately placing top-tier medical directors who have all of the qualities listed above.
If your company is looking for a new medical director, look to ESS for quality placements, expert guidance, and unrivaled results.
