Followership for Organizational Resilience in Health care

Abstract

The resilient organization has the important capability of creating high reliability. In health care, professionals deal with major challenges in terms of new working methods. The chapter describes the introduction of a standardized working method in hospitals, utilizing Lean-oriented work processes. That is different from nurses’ and physicians’ traditional and flexible way of working. These differences in approaches are the subject of the study. The question is: How can followership create and maintain high reliability and resilience in health care? A comparative case study was performed using interviews and steering documents. To maintain and create high reliability, social resources such as followership are important. Followers’ ability to improve, cooperate, and learn turned out to be important characteristics. Organizational resilience depends on these professionals’ ability to manage change.