Leadership in Healthcare

Jack Elliott heads a key department at your hospital. Robert Corning heads another key department. Jack and
Robert truly despise each other. Robert had an affair with Jack’s wife, resulting in a divorce from Jack, and
Robert’s marriage to Jack’s former wife. During the course of the ending marriage, separation with attempts to
reconcile, and eventual divorce, Robert and Jack even got into two fistfights—one at the home of Jack and his
(then) wife, and one at work.
This history becomes important because you must address a major problem confronting your hospital, and it is
essential that the departments headed by Jack and Robert be key parts of the matrix team that you are
developing. It is obviously vital that all of the requisite components work well together. Representation on the
leadership team is supposed to be at the department head level.
What problems are presented here? How do you propose to deal with those problems? Present a checklist for
building your team.