Kinda Grant on Building Healthcare Workplaces Where People Want to Stay
Updated: 14 hours ago
Kinda Grant, MBA, is a healthcare leadership and retention strategist and founder of Grant Health Leadership Group (GHLG), bringing more than 15 years of corporate talent development experience to one of healthcare's most pressing challenges: building stronger leaders and workplaces where employees want to stay. Inspired by her mother's career in nursing and shaped by her own executive-level experience at BMO Capital Markets and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Grant believes that the quality of leadership directly influences employee engagement, organizational culture, and long-term retention.
In this interview, she shares the personal journey behind GHLG, the leadership lessons she's bringing from financial services into healthcare, and why traditional approaches to employee retention often overlook the everyday experiences that shape whether people stay or leave. From the hidden pressures facing highly dependable employees to the small leadership behaviors that create lasting change, Grant offers a compelling perspective on why transforming healthcare workplaces begins with transforming how people are led.
Kinda Grant, Healthcare Leadership & Retention Strategist
What inspired you to establish Grant Health Leadership Group, and what changes do you hope to bring to healthcare leadership?
My connection to healthcare is deeply personal. My mother was a nurse, and growing up alongside my brother, I developed an early appreciation for the people behind patient care. Healthcare was never simply an industry to me. It represented service, compassion, responsibility, and the tremendous demands placed on those who care for others.
My professional journey eventually led me into corporate talent development, where I spent more than 15 years helping leaders and teams navigate complex, high-pressure environments. Along the way, one belief became increasingly clear: the quality of leadership profoundly influences the experience of employees and, ultimately, the performance of an organization. That realization inspired me to establish Grant Health Leadership Group.
I want to help healthcare organizations move beyond viewing leadership development as an occasional training initiative and recognize it as an essential organizational strategy. My focus is on equipping managers with practical skills that strengthen communication, build trust, improve morale, and support employee retention.
My vision is simple. Healthcare professionals dedicate themselves to caring for others. Their leaders must be equally intentional about creating workplaces where those professionals feel valued, supported, and empowered to thrive.
After more than 15 years in corporate talent development, what lessons from the financial industry have proven most valuable in healthcare?
One of the most valuable lessons I learned in financial services is that strong organizational performance rarely happens by accident. It requires clear expectations, effective leadership, continuous development, and consistent accountability.
Throughout my career at BMO Capital Markets and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, I worked in environments where decisions carried significant consequences, expectations were high, and employees were expected to perform under pressure. Leadership development couldn't simply be theoretical. It needed to equip people with skills they could apply immediately.
Although healthcare has its own unique complexities, I believe several leadership principles translate across industries. Employees need clarity, meaningful feedback, psychological safety, and managers who understand how to balance performance expectations with genuine support.
Another important lesson is that data tells only part of the story. Engagement scores, turnover statistics, and training completion rates can identify patterns, but meaningful conversations often reveal the underlying issues.
Through GHLG, my goal is not to bring a financial services playbook into healthcare. It's to adapt proven talent development principles to the realities healthcare leaders face, ensuring that leadership development produces meaningful behavioral change rather than simply checking a training box.
What separates leadership training that creates lasting behavioral change from training that employees quickly forget?
There's a significant difference between delivering information and changing behavior. I've seen how organizations can invest considerable time and resources in leadership development, yet struggle to translate that investment into meaningful workplace improvements. The distinction often comes down to relevance, application, and reinforcement.
Effective leadership development begins by identifying the specific behaviors an organization wants to strengthen. Rather than teaching managers to "communicate better," for example, we should equip them to conduct meaningful check-ins, address difficult conversations, provide constructive feedback, and recognize employee contributions.
Participants also need opportunities to practice those behaviors using realistic workplace situations. Most importantly, learning must continue after the session ends.
Managers need reinforcement, feedback, and accountability from their own leaders. Otherwise, even the most engaging workshop risks becoming another forgotten presentation.
I believe leadership development should be measured not simply by attendance, satisfaction surveys, or certificates, but by what people actually do differently afterward.
When employees begin experiencing clearer communication, stronger support, and more consistent leadership, that's when we know learning has translated into meaningful change.
Why do you believe healthcare organizations need to look beyond recruitment and exit interviews when addressing employee retention?
Recruitment tells us who is joining an organization. Exit interviews help explain why people leave. But what happens between those two moments is where much of the employee experience, and ultimately retention, is shaped.
By the time someone submits a resignation, the decision may have been developing for months. Perhaps they felt consistently overlooked, experienced poor communication, struggled with inadequate support, or gradually lost confidence that their concerns would be addressed.
That's why I believe healthcare organizations must become equally intentional about understanding why employees stay.
Stay interviews, meaningful manager check-ins, employee listening sessions, and ongoing feedback can reveal issues long before they become resignation letters.
Of course, staffing levels, compensation, workload, and organizational resources are critical considerations. Leadership development cannot replace those necessities. However, everyday management behaviors can either intensify workplace frustrations or help employees navigate challenging environments with greater trust and confidence.
One of my core beliefs is that employee retention doesn't begin with an exit interview. It begins with the leadership experiences employees have every day.
Organizations that understand those experiences are better positioned to create workplaces where talented people genuinely want to remain.
How can highly dependable healthcare employees unintentionally hide deeper workplace problems, and what should leaders be paying attention to?
Sometimes the employees who appear to be performing exceptionally well are the very people leaders need to pay closer attention to.
Think about the dependable team member who consistently volunteers for additional responsibilities, resolves problems without being asked, covers for colleagues, and rarely complains. From a management perspective, that person may seem like the ideal employee.
But dependability can sometimes mask exhaustion, an unmanageable workload, unclear processes, or a workplace culture where employees feel uncomfortable asking for help.
When organizations repeatedly rely on their most dependable people to compensate for systemic shortcomings, they risk normalizing unsustainable expectations.
Leaders should pay attention to patterns. Who consistently absorbs additional work? Who rarely takes a step back? Are certain employees becoming the unofficial solution to problems that should be addressed organizationally?
Importantly, not every highly dependable employee is struggling. The key is to remain curious rather than make assumptions.
I encourage managers to ask a question that goes beyond performance metrics. "What is it costing our people to consistently deliver these results?" Recognizing high performance is important. Protecting the people behind that performance is equally essential.
What everyday leadership behaviors have the greatest potential to strengthen trust and engagement among healthcare teams?
I believe trust is built through everyday leadership behaviors, often in moments that seem relatively insignificant.
One of the most powerful behaviors is simply following through. When a manager makes a commitment, whether it's addressing a concern, providing information, or advocating for additional support, employees notice whether that commitment is honored.
Another is listening with genuine curiosity rather than immediately becoming defensive or offering explanations. Employees want to know their perspectives matter, particularly when they're raising difficult issues.
Recognition is equally important. Acknowledging someone's specific contribution and explaining its impact can be far more meaningful than a generic expression of appreciation.
Then there's consistency. Leaders cannot expect trust when expectations change unpredictably, accountability is applied unevenly, or communication only happens when something goes wrong. These behaviors may sound simple, but simplicity doesn't diminish their significance.
Healthcare professionals frequently operate in demanding environments. They need leaders who communicate clearly, demonstrate empathy, provide constructive feedback, and create an atmosphere where questions and concerns can be raised without fear.
Ultimately, employees don't determine whether leadership is trustworthy by what managers say during presentations. They determine it by what those managers consistently do.
How can healthcare managers turn what they learn in leadership training into practical changes without adding to their already demanding workloads?
One of the biggest mistakes organizations can make is treating leadership development as something entirely separate from a manager's daily responsibilities.
Healthcare managers already juggle demanding workloads, competing priorities, operational pressures, and employee needs. Asking them to implement an extensive new leadership process without considering those realities can unintentionally create more frustration.
That's why I advocate for integrating leadership development into the work managers are already doing. For example, improving communication doesn't necessarily require another meeting. It might mean using the first few minutes of an existing team huddle to clarify priorities, acknowledge challenges, or invite feedback.
Developing coaching skills might begin with asking one thoughtful question during an existing employee conversation rather than immediately providing a solution.
Small, intentional behavioral changes are often more sustainable than ambitious initiatives that become difficult to maintain.
Organizations can reinforce those changes through practical job aids, brief peer discussions, and focused follow-up conversations.
My philosophy is that leadership development should make managing people more effective, not more complicated. When new behaviors become part of everyday interactions, development stops feeling like an additional responsibility and starts becoming part of how effective leadership happens.
What has shaped your belief that effective leadership must balance genuine employee support with clear accountability?
Throughout my career in corporate talent development, I've come to appreciate that effective leadership requires both compassion and accountability. Neither is particularly effective in isolation.
A leader can be genuinely supportive, approachable, and well-intentioned, but if expectations are unclear or performance concerns are consistently avoided, employees may experience confusion and frustration.
Conversely, a leader who focuses exclusively on results without considering the people responsible for achieving them may create an environment driven by pressure rather than commitment.
I believe strong leaders understand that supporting employees and holding them accountable are complementary responsibilities.
Support means ensuring people have the clarity, resources, coaching, and opportunity to succeed. Accountability means establishing meaningful expectations, providing honest feedback, and addressing performance concerns consistently and respectfully.
One question I encourage managers to consider is, "Have I clearly communicated what success looks like, and have I provided the support necessary to achieve it?"
That question creates an opportunity for leaders to examine their own responsibilities before evaluating someone else's performance.
For me, the goal isn't choosing between being a compassionate leader and a results-oriented leader. It's recognizing that sustainable organizational performance requires both.
What is one change healthcare leaders could make today to create a workplace where employees feel valued and want to stay?
If I could encourage healthcare leaders to make one immediate change, it would be to become more intentional about listening to employees and, just as importantly, acting on what they hear.
Start by asking one simple question. "What is one thing about your work experience that we could improve to make your job more manageable or meaningful?" Then listen without interrupting, minimizing concerns, or immediately defending existing practices.
Employees don't necessarily expect every challenge to be resolved overnight. But they should trust that their concerns are taken seriously and that leaders will communicate what happens next.
When employees repeatedly share feedback without seeing meaningful action, trust deteriorates. When leaders demonstrate that employee voices influence decisions, they begin creating workplaces where people feel respected, supported, and valued.
For healthcare executives who recognize opportunities to strengthen leadership, morale, and retention within their organizations, I invite you to visit GHLG's site and complete the "Request a Workforce Challenge Conversation" form. Let's explore how stronger leadership can help create a workplace where your people and your organization can thrive.
Read more from Kinda Grant
