Crush the Climb: Real-World Advice for Moving Up the Healthcare Leadership Ladder

By Talayah Jackson

Ready for an upgrade in your education? Much of what you need to know as a healthcare leader won't be learned in a textbook. Forget what your instructors told you about internships and fellowships, networking, and building your resume. With the right knowledge, experience, and mindset you can get the exposure you want, stand out from the cro

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author Academy Elite
• Release date: May 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640850750

Book preview

Crush the Climb

Real-World Advice for Moving Up the Healthcare Leadership Ladder

Talayah Jackson

Foreword by Nancy Stephan, 2012 Georgia Author of the Year The Truth About Butterflies

Copyright © 2018 Talayah Jackson

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Published by Author Academy Elite

P.O. Box 43, Powell, OH 43035

www.AuthorAcademyElite.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-64085-073-6

Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-64085-074-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952181

DEDICATION

To all the students and professionals who shared their frustrations, aspirations, and goals with me. You are my inspiration for this book, and I hope the insights and lessons provided here lead you to the top of the ladder!

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Part I – Confront the Ladder

Chapter 1 - Get Real with Yourself

Chapter 2 - Check Your E.I. at the Door

Chapter 3 - Don’t Skimp on Relationships

Chapter 4 - Be a Student of the System

Part II - Climb the Ladder

Chapter 5 - Think Like an Entrepreneur

Chapter 6 - Be the Captain and the Cheerleading Squad

Chapter 7 - Chart a Unique Course

Part III – Crush the Ladder

Chapter 8 - Break the Mold

Chapter 9 - Think Global, Act Local

Chapter 10 - Be Prepared to Pivot

Part IV - View From the Top

Chapter 11 - Pull Someone Else Up

Acknowledgements

Notes

About The Author

Foreword

When Talayah asked me to write the foreword to Crush the Climb: Real-World Advise for Moving up the Healthcare Leadership Ladder, I agreed before even reading the manuscript. I knew that if she was writing a leadership guide on this topic, it would be of great benefit to not only the readers, but also to the industry and management circles through which those readers move.

I met Talayah 10 years ago when she was the administrator of the facility where my daughter was receiving treatment. Beyond the doctor, nurses, and other healthcare professionals, Talayah was our go-to person. She was the one we relied on for consistency and compassion, the one who grounded us during a very difficult time. Later, after we both had moved on from that experience, my and Talayah’s paths crossed again in a more personal setting, and we became friends. As friends often do, I shared with her a rather rough experience we had at the facility shortly after she left. Her response elevated her to goddess level in my book. Not only did she apologize on behalf of her former colleagues, she refrained from badmouthing or finger pointing, which, I confess, is probably better than I would have done. Instead of laying blame, she turned the spotlight on herself. This moved me in a very profound way. She was long gone when the incident occurred, yet what seemed most intuitive to her was to take responsibility for and fix something that she had no hand in breaking. If this isn’t a perfect example of an emotionally intelligent leader, then I can assure you that no such leader exists. One thing Talayah aims to do with Crush the Climb, is nurture this same emotional intelligence in other healthcare leaders.

Crush the Climb touches on foundational principles, but it is not just for healthcare leaders. The principles that Talayah lays out are for anyone going from point A to point B regardless of career. In fact, the very first principle is essential to everyone, everywhere, at all times. It is a linchpin principle because without it the other principles simply do not matter:

Do a gut check, and ask yourself if you are pursuing the right goal for the right reasons. If not, any directives will only lead you further askew. It’s not until we can ask ourselves this basic, existential question and not let ourselves off the hook until we get a truthful answer that we can be confident in our pursuits. I speak from experience. I set a career goal and reached it by the time I was 21, but it didn’t take me long to realize that my goal and what made me happy were not the same thing. When I read Crush the Climb I knew that if I’d had a book like this earlier in my career, it would not have taken me 18 years to listen to what my gut had been telling me all