The standards we hold ourselves to in our personal lives most certainly bleed over into our professional lives, and vice versa. With that in mind, I asked senior healthcare leader Mark Dixon what his personal mission is in life; after giving it some thought, Dixon responded, “I wasn’t sure I had a personal mission, but it drove me back to something that I started using years and years ago just about life in general, and it was three statements: First, work hard. Second, always be honest with folks. And third, have fun. And I do that—whether it’s in the personal things I’m working on, or in my work life.”
When asked who his role model is, Dixon immediately named his mother, Barbara Dixon, who also had a very successful career as a healthcare executive, serving in nursing and consulting. Watching his mother taught Dixon how he wanted to live his life; “She was a good role model to help me see that you can have a lot of fun, but also if you work hard and keep a positive attitude, your positive attitude will serve you six times more than any sort of negative attitude.”
Dixon named three more mentors that had a huge impact on his life and leadership: Darwin Zaske, Bob Spinner, and Gordon Sprenger. Dixon explains how when he was just starting off his career as a young pharmacist, Zaske encouraged him to take a leadership role and demonstrated his support and confidence in Dixon’s leadership potential and ability to make important decisions. “That was a powerful message, at a young age, to know that you had support from a leadership standpoint to innovate and to change and to improve things.”
Dixon went on to explain how he reported to Bob Spinner and Gordon Sprenger during his eighteen years with Allina Health System. “Bob and Gordy are some of the strongest leaders I have ever known in my career, they are great communicators, and they both have amazing values to guide them.” Both men helped guide and teach Dixon how to be a better healthcare leader:
“Bob Spinner taught me how to build high performing teams, how to stay focused on results, how to really help an organization achieve its potential, and some of those other lessons of keeping a positive attitude, and relationship skills and doctor skills… he was an invaluable mentor. One thing Gordy Sprenger taught me was that a leader’s job is to keep your mind out five years ahead of the organization, and try to lead correctly anticipating the future; begin putting in place the things today that will allow your organization to be successful five years out. Another skill that I learned from him and watched him do is to take that five-years-out vision and translate that into a powerful vision for the organization such that everybody could grab on to that and say ‘yes, that’s where we want to go.’”
When asked what wisdom he would offer to current and future leaders, Dixon provided his own sage advice: “Regardless of what position you’re in,” he said, “you will always benefit from trying to examine the decision-making process from the person two or three levels above you—asking, ‘how would they look at this situation?’ What I find is when you think about that, you will make better decisions for your organization, and people will see that you are focusing on the bigger picture,” he explained. Dixon said this approach has been core to his own leadership style.
He also advises those in healthcare to always think about how a decision is going to affect the patient. It may sound obvious—the patient should come first, but it’s a value that unfortunately is sometimes forgotten. “Too often the question is either not asked or it’s just assumed that it’s not going to have any impact on patients,” Dixon says.
Together, these values and strategies help make a good leader great. Mark Dixon loves what he does, and it shows not only in his personal successes, but is also reflected in the successes of the organizations in which he has served. Dixon honestly can’t see himself as anything but a leader. I asked him what he thinks he would have done had he not chosen a career in healthcare leadership; “I’m guessing I would have landed in a leadership role at some sort of other organization,” he said, “I really enjoy working with people. I can’t imagine doing something all by myself.”