"The best healthcare leaders have an intuitive ability to balance being tough-minded with being tender-hearted. Ultimately, they understand that the center of their work is to take care of the people who take care of people."
It’s an honor to be able to recognize Dr. George Mikitarian, President & CEO of Parrish Medical Center, as our first Healing Hospital CEO of the Year for 2007.
George has led his organization to the top of the Healing Hospital list for three years in a row. How does he do it?…
We’ve been watching him in action for nearly four years. In the end, a list of behaviors will never adequately tell the story. At the same time, a close observation of this leader at work is very illuminating. Here are some of the characteristics we see in this fine human being:
1) Integrity and Respect: George respects himself and the people around him. He is a CEO who never seems to get caught up in his own power. He is as caring towards first line staff people as he is towards the board members who employ him.
2) Humility: We love this aspect of George’s personality because it enables him to LISTEN so well. We have rarely encountered a CEO who is faster to pick up good ideas. This is because he doesn’t think he has all the answers and he is open to learning from others.
3) Follow-up: On the heels of his listening, George makes things happen. When he hears a good idea, he implements it as rapidly as anyone we’ve seen. He is wise enough to learn from organizations that are succeeding and understands how smart it is to adopt good ideas on behalf of his organization. So many CEOs are good at seeming like they’re going to follow-up with things. George actually does it and his organization is the better for it.
4) Passion: He is passionate about the things that count – his faith, his family (including his charming wife and special five-year-old son), his leadership work, his goals to lead his organization toward excellence.
5) Positive thinking: Relatively speaking, Parrish Medical Center is a medium-sized hospital operated under a quasi-government authority. Where lots of people might view this as limiting, George has instead made the very best of what he has.
6) Courageous: This is not just Boy Scout courage. It is the kind of courage and integrity that have enabled George to face down the toughest kinds of challenges – from medical staff issues to construction, to budget challenges. George takes personal accountability for solving the tough issues and knows that the buck stops with him. This is because he has a special sense of fairness and justice. His integrity calls him to act when he sees that something is wrong rather than to ignore what’s wrong.
7) Balanced: As passionate as he is, George offers the sense of a balanced individual who has his priorities in order. A hard worker, he nevertheless appreciates the need for rest. He has recently completed his PhD with the Medical University of South Carolina. He would be the first to say that this is a commentary on persistence as much as it is on intelligence (although he has plenty of that as well.)
Overall, Dr. Mikitarian is a model leader. He combines all the elements of his potential into the most important thing of all: He is a loving human being. Living Love is too rare among hospital CEOs. It’s great to see it exhibited in one of the finest leaders we’ve ever met, George Mikitarian, our Healing Hospital CEO of the Year.
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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