The Chaplain MBA: Healthcare Oxymoron?
Jaime Riggs, MDiv, MBA Candidate, BIDMC, Boston, MA
This paper will explore the possibilities and challenges of chaplains serving in leadership roles in healthcare settings. While chaplaincy is relatively young in the professionalization of patient care, the skills of chaplaincy both resonate and clash with the demands of c-suite healthcare leadership. What would it mean for a chaplain to serve a hospital in a vice-president-level role (or higher)? How would a chaplaincy lens add to the dialog of leaders? What productive challenges would chaplains bring? What risks? The professionalization process of healthcare professions has led to creating more career trajectory options for clinicians to advance through an organization, beyond the director level. Are chaplains appropriate to these kinds of managerial and strategic functions? If so, how would the profession of chaplaincy need to change in order to teach new skills and create the kinds of roles in which chaplains can learn and flourish professionally, beyond the roles of direct patient and staff spiritual care?
Coherence is a helpful intellectual framework for exploring these questions. Within the profession, chaplains have often been at odds with the idea of being a part of a healthcare system. Chaplains often think of themselves as "in but not of" the hospital, and respond to patients as advocates and allies, ethically bound to higher callings than their org structure and manager. Does this potentially "rogue" element in the chaplain identity become incoherent if the chaplain is operating in a traditional leadership role within the c suite?
Assuming that "chaplain leader" is found to be a coherent role, what skills would a chaplain potentially bring to the table? What sort of leadership skills do chaplains have? Those who move forward in ministry within congregational settings use the same educational background to serve in a function that most closely parallels a CEO. Many who come to chaplaincy may have arrived by a process of discernment that affirmed gifts for organizational leadership, but then serve in a large hospital in which they serve in a role very far down the organizational chart, with little opportunity for career advancement. While an MDiv may be seen as a leadership degree within a religious context, within a hospital's credentialling world, MDiv is an anomaly, given the very small numbers of chaplains. Yet there are parallels between the course structure of an MBA and an MDiv. In what ways can these skills be recast for their leadership merits, and how can chaplains learn to speak their knowledge in ways that will resonate in the boardroom?
Given the framework presented by the conference theme of the "Great Coherence," this paper will address how the perspective of chaplains, i.e., missional fostering of wholeness, a commitment to "rebinding" what has become frayed, may be the seasoning that many hospitals and other healthcare institutions would do well to add to their leadership team, in order to confront fragmentation, mission drift, and misalignment of healthcare values. Chaplains bring skills for emotional holding of their teams, which are compatible with what good leaders provide to calm and steady their staff during troubled times.
This paper will explore these topics through the lens of both the chaplain curriculum and competencies, as well as the MBA curriculum and business practices of hospitals, as well as in dialog with chaplains and healthcare leaders. The writer will pursue the topic through research and interviews. This writer is MDiv'12 MBA'24 (anticipated), and has served as a chaplain at BIDMC, Boston for five years.
Coherence is a helpful intellectual framework for exploring these questions. Within the profession, chaplains have often been at odds with the idea of being a part of a healthcare system. Chaplains often think of themselves as "in but not of" the hospital, and respond to patients as advocates and allies, ethically bound to higher callings than their org structure and manager. Does this potentially "rogue" element in the chaplain identity become incoherent if the chaplain is operating in a traditional leadership role within the c suite?
Assuming that "chaplain leader" is found to be a coherent role, what skills would a chaplain potentially bring to the table? What sort of leadership skills do chaplains have? Those who move forward in ministry within congregational settings use the same educational background to serve in a function that most closely parallels a CEO. Many who come to chaplaincy may have arrived by a process of discernment that affirmed gifts for organizational leadership, but then serve in a large hospital in which they serve in a role very far down the organizational chart, with little opportunity for career advancement. While an MDiv may be seen as a leadership degree within a religious context, within a hospital's credentialling world, MDiv is an anomaly, given the very small numbers of chaplains. Yet there are parallels between the course structure of an MBA and an MDiv. In what ways can these skills be recast for their leadership merits, and how can chaplains learn to speak their knowledge in ways that will resonate in the boardroom?
Given the framework presented by the conference theme of the "Great Coherence," this paper will address how the perspective of chaplains, i.e., missional fostering of wholeness, a commitment to "rebinding" what has become frayed, may be the seasoning that many hospitals and other healthcare institutions would do well to add to their leadership team, in order to confront fragmentation, mission drift, and misalignment of healthcare values. Chaplains bring skills for emotional holding of their teams, which are compatible with what good leaders provide to calm and steady their staff during troubled times.
This paper will explore these topics through the lens of both the chaplain curriculum and competencies, as well as the MBA curriculum and business practices of hospitals, as well as in dialog with chaplains and healthcare leaders. The writer will pursue the topic through research and interviews. This writer is MDiv'12 MBA'24 (anticipated), and has served as a chaplain at BIDMC, Boston for five years.