Mindful Leadership: A Guide to Healthcare Management

Healthcare organizations are an important part of social living since their existence protects the two most basic rights of humans, which are health and life. Thus, healthcare organizations should be organized and managed as High Reliability Organizations, the basic characteristic of which is the successful handling of difficult conditions, the avoidance of mistakes, and the restraint of risks and failures. The condition of high reliability is achievable through leadership characterized by the philosophy of mindfulness. The application of mindfulness in organizational management creates leaders who are objective, efficient, and decisive. At the same time, the employees enjoy a high level of well-being, without stress, unnecessary anxiety, and burn-out. Therefore, healthcare organizations need to follow mindful leadership in order to create mindful personnel, which would experience a condition of organizational well-being for the benefit not only of the healthcare organization but primarily of patients and their familiar and social environment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze high reliability concepts and describe the importance of these concepts to hospitals, while implementing mindful leadership.