June Gower Discusses the Qualities She Most Values in a Leader

June Gower on Leadership: How She Found a Balance

June Gower has been an Executive Healthcare Leader for clients across the country. She was the Associate Chief Nurse for the Attorney General’s Office and the Reserve Commander for Medical Readiness, and Regional Director for the AF Training site. From training to patient care, Dr. Gower had to step into multiple roles that required her to unite people and keep operations going — even in the face of extreme pressure. She shares what this has taught her about leadership and why the development of these skills is indeed an ongoing process.

June Gower says that her military experience, various leadership challenges, and strong desire to provide a better healthcare delivery system foundation for her continued success. When she served as Senior Director for an International Medical Center in Egypt, she quickly established herself as a subject matter expert to gain the trust of the CEO, Physicians, and Nurses while building new workflow standards that could be easily implemented. After retiring from the Armed Services, she went on to lead the industry in roles as a Senior Consultant, Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Operations, Executive Director, and subject matter expert for the local legislators. She has proven the ability to quickly assess the operational process, identify growth opportunities, clearly collaborate with the organization’s goals while staying abreast of the regulatory challenges.  She utilized each new leadership role as an opportunity to learn and build new relationships; while approaching the annual targets with an open sense of optimism which was shared with the key stakeholders.

With analytics in hand, strong interpersonal relationships, and a  vision for better care, she has created multiple new programs to close the community gap and extend growth; Cardiovascular, Ambulatory Surgical Center, Psychiatric observations, multiple in-patient units, and Emergency Fast track just to name a few. She has instituted proctorship programs for physicians, updated the standard of care, created contract negotiations for foreign systems, regulatory compliance, and operational anticipation. Her emotional intelligence and ability to take a culture from good to great results in a strong competitive market, improved performance, and employee/customer loyalty.

June Gower is professional, respectful, and communication with her employees has allowed her to share the “big picture,” which attracts talent, develops leadership, and continues the delivery of excellent care across several systems. This quality is one that most leaders believe they have. Still, the trait is much rarer than it might seem on the surface. To make real improvements, she has to help other people — many staunchly against making significant changes to their workday — recognize organizations that embrace innovative change are top performers.

She had to earn people’s trust in a short period of time, which she could only manage to do by being confident without overstepping into arrogance. This balance, which can only be honed over an extended period of time, has been critical to her success. Dr. Gower believes that leadership should exhibit Service to the community, Quality in performance that is measurable, Stewardship that aligns patient-focused care with financial optimization, and Integrity is admitting our mistakes than taking action to error-proof our care.  Integrity- Doing the right thing for the right reason and owning the results.

After earning numerous military awards, including the Southwest Asia Service Medal and Achievement Medals, she has absorbed countless lessons from her time on the job. Her combined experience gave her the utmost respect for efficiency. She’s notorious for her ability to quickly evaluate the straightest path from Point A to Point B. Effective leaders in any industry don’t have the luxury of wasting time. Still, this tenet takes on more significant stakes when applied to health care.

June Gower on Inspiring a Team

June Gower started as a field medic in the army when she was straight out of high school. This demanding role is also often a thankless one, but it did give her an opportunity to understand how individuals can be inspired to go above and beyond and develop a deep bond with her team during crisis events. She also got a sense of how individual responses could affect the overall team. Forging relationships, displaying competency, and practicing active listening are undeniably essential. However, she found that to be effective. She had to be willing to jump into and believe in the courage of her convictions.