Aid Effectiveness: The Leadership of Ministries of Health

Ministries and Departments of Health need effective leaders. I do not think leaders are born. We become leaders by rising to the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and by choosing to take charge of the challenges we have to overcome every day. Read below to learn how I became a leader and what we teach our clients.

Health leaders develop seven essential traits that make them effective:

1. Human rights-based: Health leaders understand and are committed to respecting, protecting and fulfilling the right to health of every citizen.
2. Perseverance: Health leaders learn to never give up when facing the huge challenges of global health. They keep on searching until they find a solution.
3. Responsibility: Health leaders take responsibility of results and fix things that do not work. They stay focused on the goals that must be achieved.
4. Systems: Everything health leaders do is focused on systematizing procedures and putting effective standards and procedures in place.
5. Team work: Health leaders surround themselves with professionals that demonstrate to deliver results and do not make excuses for not getting the job done.
6. Sense of humor: Health leaders do not take themselves too seriously and learn to laugh at their mistakes.
7. Accountability: On a scale of 1 to 10, health leaders know where they rank in all the above traits. They always strive to be at 9 or 10. No excuses.

If you want to learn more about leadership and a new way of designing and implementing effective global health programs, I invite you to join the next free RGH webinar entitled “Aid Effectiveness in Global Health: Getting Back to Basics in Global Health”.

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