I loved how he jokingly said, "it's only natural for a guy who was 16 years ago pursuing a career in military intelligence with high hopes of making it into the FBI to end up in Hospital Administration." But it is with that very point that he is so thankful "that there is a higher power by the name of Jesus Christ who has always made clear next steps to take all along the way. It is He who ultimately gives promotion and position." Both Adam and I are extremely grateful for the opportunity to have this COO job at Arkansas Heart Hospital and for the trust that his boss, Dr. Murphy, has placed in him. Adam truly enjoys going to work each day and having the privilege of leading this organizations day-to-day operations.
Adam went on to talk about the "power" of leadership. He said often times "power" gets a bad wrap mainly because we see some in high positions abuse the power they have been entrusted with. Leadership speaker and author, Andy Stanley, when talking to a group of business men, once asked the question, "What are you going to do, when you look around you and you realize you're the most powerful person in the room?" It's a tough question, but it's one that all those who are in positions of leadership must consider. The high calling for every leader is to use the power they wield in a way as to leverage it for the good of those within their sphere of influence.
He went on to share one of the first times he sensed that he "was the most powerful person in the room." When he was a Lieutenant in the Army Medical Service Corps deployed to Ramadi, Iraq as a Medical Platoon Leader in 2005. He was in charge of the medical operations of an 800 man Battalion utilizing a 40-man medical platoon under his charge. Half of his medics were assigned to go out on missions with the infantry platoons and the other half stayed on standby near the aid station to treat the injured as they rolled into the area with fresh wounds. The aid station was a 15x25 foot room with cinderblock walls located in a maintenance bay for vehicles damaged by roadside bombs. They didn't have telemetry monitoring, nurse call systems or x-ray equipment--they didn't need it. Their job was to patch the injured up quickly and get them back in the fight or to call in a "bird" (a helicopter) to get the injured to a higher level of care. He slept with a radio every night that entire year as did all his platoon, in order to alert everyone in the event of incoming casualties to their location. Unfortunately, sometimes they were alerted multiple times in a night. One such night around 11:00 pm, in September 2005, they got a call that a truck carrying many Iraqi army soldiers (our allies) along with some American soldier vehicle escorts had hit a massive roadside bomb. When they arrived the number of casualties that were unloaded from transporting vehicles into the maintenance bay outside the aid station was close to 30. Since they only had four treatment cots in the aid station, each casualty was quickly assessed one by one to mark each according to their treatment priority so they could help those with the highest priority (yet survivable) injuries first. He said, "I knew my leadership was required and there was no one else who could create control and order in the midst of that chaos".
So that night, along with dozens of other nights from that year and dozens of moments since, are imprinted on his mind as moments where he knew he must use the power given to him and "leverage it" for the good of those under his charge. He left everyone with this question to consider, "what will we do with those moments? How will we leverage our power for those in our circle of influence?"
I was incredibly proud of Adam last night as I watched him receive a well deserved award. Honey, I love you and am so glad to have a front row seat to this career journey you're on.
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