October 31, 2023

How to Be an Ethical Influencer Within Your Healthcare Organization

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In today’s complex environment, decisions are often made quickly and without full context. The skills of social influence can help healthcare leaders gain trust, expand the narrative and engage people at all levels of their organization when weighing impactful decisions. To better understand how healthcare professionals can use the power of influencing in their daily practice with ethical considerations, we asked Martie L. Moore, MAOM, RN, CPHQ and CEO of M²WL Consulting, to share her insight for Brookdale’s Optimum Life® Continuing Education Series.

As a registered nurse, senior executive and expert business consultant, Moore is adept at discussing organizational leadership and communication inside complex healthcare systems. Moore uses the principles of social media influencing as a framework to discuss the importance of developing your personal brand and fostering lateral leadership in healthcare using influence skills and the ethics of clinical practice.

Incorporate the Building Blocks of Influence

As influencing has become a career path with the rise of social media, colleges and universities now have courses on how to become an influencer. The steps outlined in these classes include actions such as:

Identify your niche.
Get to know your audience.
Create your brand.
Refine your influencer skills and strategy.

These skills that social media influencers tap into online are also valuable in the hallways and conference rooms of your organization. By asking yourself whom your decisions will impact and whose buy-in you need in order to effect change, you identify your audience and begin to determine the best ways to engage with them.

See Core Values as Your Personal Brand

Whether we realize it or not, everyone has a personal brand. Your personal brand as a healthcare professional can be determined by your values and how you show up for others in your environment. Are you known for being authentic and upholding integrity? Do others describe you as approachable? Do you listen and seek to learn when interacting with others?

Being aware of your personal brand and intentionally ensuring that it reflects your core values will help you expand your network and receive valuable input from people at all levels within your organization.

Influence Through the Lens of Healthcare Ethics

A critical part of being an effective healthcare professional is maintaining a high standard of ethics. But concepts like influencing, persuasion and negotiation can often evoke negative connotations like manipulation or insincerity.

Healthcare leaders can lean on the four principles of ethics while influencing to create authentic, more meaningful dialogue inside their daily practice.

Autonomy requires leaders to respect individuals and their freedom to self-manage. It supports lateral leadership and a willingness to change.

Justice requires that leaders provide fair and unbiased concern when making decisions.

Beneficence requires leaders in their decision-making to understand and acknowledge the obligation of benefiting staff, patients and residents, their organization, and the greater community.

Nonmaleficence applies the responsibility to bring no harm to patients and residents, staff, the organization or the community when making decisions.

Make Change Using Principle-Centered Power

Through the lens of ethical considerations, the art of influencing activates your principle-centered power as a leader.

Adopting the power of influence in this way can result in more visibility and a higher degree of trust across all levels of your organization, along with driving more effective decision-making that is beneficial and equitable for all involved.

At Brookdale, we want to provide you with information to help you continue to develop and enrich your skills for career growth and longevity. To access a Brookdale-sponsored Continuing Education session in your area, please click here, where you can also download our full Optimum Life® Continuing Education Series flyer for more details.

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