Leadership Strategies for Streamlining Employee Protocols in Small Behavioral Health Agencies

Streamlining employee protocols in behavioral health agencies are a critical challenge for organizations. Inconsistencies with maintaining protocols can impair an organization’s systems developed to ensure accurate and timely documentation, can impede processes for time off, and can decrease service quality. This qualitative case study was grounded in the Baldrige Framework of Excellence to discover leadership strategies for streamlining employee protocols in Behavioral Health Organization U (BHOU). The identified population consisted of mental health clinicians in the Southeast region of the United States. Data collection occurred through interviews with the organization’s leader, questionnaires, and secondary data. Thematic analysis revealed six themes: training, communication, engagement, time, accountability, and resistance. The results showed that BHOU had the fundamentals of leadership and working with their team. BHOU can enhance training, engagement, and follow-through on behalf of leadership to improve employee readiness with maintaining protocols in place. Creating new strategies for implementing behavioral health leadership may contribute to sustainability with an agency’s process and positive social change by assisting organizations in developing tools needed to integrate employee protocols that can positively impact client care.