Great leadership can thrive at any level of an organization. As our CTO Wade Chambers explains, great leadership is not about titles—it’s about having the right vision and making meaningful changes towards that vision.  

At Included Health, Wade and our tech leadership team spearheaded an initiative to support great leadership characteristics across the organization. This initiative, called Leadership Labs, drives the growth of leadership qualities at all levels of the team. This hands-on approach to professional development, along with many other perks, makes Included Health such a great place to work.

Great Leaders Inspire Change

A recent Leadership Lab focused on  “Engineering Manager Expectations.” This discussion not only provided an opportunity for Wade to talk about the essential qualities of a leader, but also gave team members across the company a forum to discuss their own beliefs and offer feedback.

In the Leadership Lab, Wade discussed  the characteristics of a great leader. He also put those very beliefs into practice, showing how, at Included Health, great leadership resulted in meaningful change for our members and our employees.

The Qualities of a Leader and a Manager

Wade explained the important differences between management and leadership. Good management involves controls and systems and the practical aspects of how, when, and by whom things get done.

Good leadership, on the other hand, leads with vision and change. It’s about having a direction and goals and aligning the team towards getting there. You know you’re a great leader when your team creates change as the direct result of purposeful action on your part.

Great leaders require both skills, however, especially as they move up within an organization. Management without leadership creates predictable results and lacks the initiative to change or drive innovation. While leadership may motivate employees towards future goals, without effective management it does not create the structure to reach those goals.

What Our Team Members Have to Say About Great Leadership Qualities

After Wade led this discussion, different team members shared insights on inspiring the change great leaders envision and what makes a great leader.

How do you inspire and motivate both your team and your function?

Carolina Marquez and Meera Rao both stressed the importance of great leaders reaching across team boundaries to foster relationships.

“Reaching across team boundaries. That’s one of the things I see different between management and leadership. Managers are focusing on this group. Leadership is stretching across finding those common purposes.”

–Carolina Marquez, Sr. Manager, Data Science

Making connections with other team members builds camaraderie in an inspirational way. 

“The sense of also being in it together. Having that sort of companionship. Or just having that sense of I am not in it alone can be inspiring and motivational.”

–Meera Rao, Sr. Manager, Quantitative Research

Lastly, Nupur Srivastava touched on the power of closing the loop: by making sure team members get acknowledged for their successes, great leaders empower them to see the outcomes of their hard work.

“One thing that I think people do well is to take the time to close the loop after the project finishes. Ensure that the team understands that the team trusted you to work on something and it had the desired impact.”

–Nupur Srivastava, Chief Product Officer

Great Leadership and Included Health

These collaborative moments from our Leadership Lab series provide great insight into Included Health’s culture. As a tech company driving change in healthcare, we have to be innovative and agile, but also structured and reliable, which means that our company relies heavily on both management and leadership skills.

Our executives have the necessary skills to bring about the meaningful change we want to see in the world. They also have the ability and desire to empower employees throughout the entire organization to grow as leaders. At Included Health, you can do more than work for great leaders—you can grow to become one.  

For more information about open positions at Included Health, please visit our careers page.