Healthcare Leader Dr. Tiffany Love Shares Top Tips to Women for Advancing Your Career and Reaching the C-Suite
“As Incident Commander for COVID19 my leadership team and I made decisions daily that directly impacted the financial health of our organization and the physical health of our community.” Today’s woman dreamer, Dr. Tiffany Love, is a female leader to know in the healthcare world. A life-long learner with a passion for developing the next generation of executives, Tiffany reflects on some of the pivotal moments of her career, starting with her first leadership role at the Department of Veteran Affairs and her next big dream with the “Love Leadership Foundation”. She shares her top tips to women looking to advance, reminding us, “We are living through “the great resignation.” You should consider this is your great opportunity.” A must-read professional and personal journey, we are excited to share Tiffany’s story.
Tell us your story. How did you go about your first leadership role at the Department of Veteran Affiras? What were some key learnings?
I began working in healthcare at the age of fifteen. I initially thought I wanted to be a physician but quickly realized I enjoyed nursing more. Being a lifelong learner I found myself pursuing a Master’s of Science in Nursing (MSN) as an adult and a second MSN as a Gerontological nurse practitioner. Within one year after finishing those degrees I decided to pursue my PhD in healthcare research. As Black female scientist I found it difficult to find a post-doctoral opportunity that met my needs. I looked for research opportunities within the Department of Veterans Affairs and accepted my first leadership role.
Within the Department of Veterans Affairs I learned I could rise through the ranks more quickly if I was willing to relocate. In three years I advanced from being a program manager to be the Deputy Associate Director of Patient Care Services. During my tenure as Deputy there was a change in leadership that resulted in me being under the leadership of a negative boss. Suddenly I felt stuck in an undesirable situation. I began to look for strategies to overcome the barriers that negative boss seemed to create to prevent my advancement. At this time I realized becoming a board certified healthcare executive through the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) would provide the credential I needed to continue my career advancement. I also attended my first women’s conference, the Career Advancement and Leadership Skills for Women in Healthcare Harvard CME. This conference taught me how to build my brand as a healthcare professional. The combination of these two organizations helped change the trajectory of my career.
2. You do signficiant consultant and advisory work. Tell us more about that!
I have served in many c-suite level roles within the federal government nationally as well as the private sector regionally including working as a Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Nursing Officer (CNO). I consult on a variety of topics ranging from health sciences education to healthcare staffing. In addition to serving as an Advisory Council member of the Harvard Business Review, I have also served as an Advisory Committee member for Academy Health Delivery System Science Fellowship and the National Institute of Health on training the next generation of implementation researchers for equity.
Many of my awards and accomplishments have been the result of my career advising, mentoring, and sponsorship through the Harvard CME that I serve and the American College of Healthcare Executives. Through this work the majority of my mentees have been healthcare administrators and physicians who seek me out because of my expertise on thriving and being an agent for change in toxic work environments.
Through ACHE I have created multiple inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committees. I am also known for developing a national virtual educational series for healthcare executives with agency wide attendance within the Department of Veterans Affairs. I was noted as being the most requested mentor through ACHE. More recently I have been appointed the advisory board of Sigma Theta Tau International Center for Excellence in Nursing Education, and Advisor and content developer for the Nurse Leadership Academy for Practice.
3. How did you discover your passion and vision for the business and healthcare space?
My passion is developing diverse C-suite leaders. My vision is for our national healthcare system to have leadership teams representative of the communities served. There are critics who will say there are no diverse leaders in the pipeline. I would challenge them and say that there are leaders in the pipeline that they need to be more intentional about developing and sponsoring.
Early in my career I realized that healthcare is a business. As a Chief Operating Officer and second in command of the healthcare organization I served I was often the legally responsible party identified to attest to our organization being in compliance with local, state, and federal laws. As Incident Commander for COVID19 my leadership team and I made decisions daily that directly impacted the financial health of our organization and the physical health of our community. There were always decisions with an overlapping responsibility of fiscal stewardship and community health.
4. What are your top career tips for women in healthcare?
We are living through “the great resignation.” You should consider this is your great opportunity. Many leadership roles are becoming available. Employers are realizing they need to offer a more competitive wage. The world is realizing the value of your contribution to the workforce and the devastating impact of you leaving. Now is the time to pursue a career advancement opportunity. Now is the time to ask for an equitable wage. Now is the time to ask for a more flexible work schedule.
5. How Do you seek to to inspire women empowerment and women career advancement?
I want to encourage women to pursue their dreams for career advancement. I do this through public speaking, podcasts, and publications. More recently I have developed a consulting service to create additional opportunities for people to have access to me. I also wanted to create a way to keep track of the number of women and diverse leaders I help advance to higher levels of leadership.
6. As the platform for women dreamers, what is your next big dream?
My dream is to accelerate the development of diverse healthcare leaders of all disciplines. I plan to do this through the Love Leadership foundation. Through this foundation I am designing career development programs uniquely designed to help diverse leaders advance more quickly to higher levels of leadership. The inaugural program will launch in January 2022.
The majority of my work with nurse leaders has been through Sigma Theta Tau International. I feel that nurse leaders need support now more than ever. As a result, my first program from the Love Leadership foundation will be for career development of nurse leaders. It will focus on developing diverse nurse leaders to address health disparities as well as disparities within the healthcare workforce.
Bio: Tiffany A. Love is an award-winning board-certified C-suite executive, Fellow and former Regent of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) with over 30 years of healthcare experience. Love is recognized internationally as a leader in the advancement of women and diverse healthcare executives. She is Chairwoman of the Board of Directors for the Healthcare Diversity Council and serves as an international keynote speaker and faculty for many prestigious organizations. She serves as nurse planner & guest faculty for the Harvard Medical School CME on Career Advancement Leadership Skills for Women in Healthcare. She has also served as guest faculty, judge, & pitch coach for the Writing, Publishing, and Social Media for Healthcare Professionals.
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