Lara SummersLara Summers, Ph.D.
Lara Summers, Ph.D. is an Executive Coach with MEDI. She provides executive leadership coaching, as well as team and organizational alignment strategies to leaders. She also partners with HR leaders to create and implement organization-wide leadership development strategies that are aligned with organizational and talent management goals. Although she has worked with companies across multiple industries, her primary focus is in healthcare. Lara fluently combines universal leadership and organizational change principles with the intricacies specific to the healthcare industry.

Lara has provided executive coaching and team development services to healthcare executives from the CEO to director level. She has worked with leaders to create teams and departments that are engaged and aligned around a shared vision and goal-driven outcomes. Lara has partnered with administrators and physician leaders to bring forth large-scale change in hospitals and health systems, including facilitating strategies for leaders to develop the necessary skills to effectively guide clinical integration and physician alignment efforts and to actively manage cultural barriers of resistance during change. In her executive coaching work, she also provides leadership transition coaching where the focus is to maximize a leader's impact in the first 100 days and women's leadership coaching, designed to encompass leadership challenges that present uniquely for women.

Lara has an expertise in assessment and development. As an industrial and organizational psychologist, she is skilled at developing, administering and interpreting a wide range of reliable and valid instruments.

Lara received her Bachelor's degree in Psychology, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Master's degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology, Colorado State University and Doctor of Philosophy degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology, Colorado State University.


Experience At A Glance:

  • 6 years as an executive leadership coach to senior healthcare leaders
  • Industrial Organizational Psychologist
  • National presenter on women's leadership and advancement issues
  • Specialties include:
    • High potential selection
    • Personality and leadership assessments
    • Leadership development initiatives, including program and curriculum design, training and implementation, and evaluation
    • Organizational coaching program design and training

Education

  • Executive Coaching Training, Legacy Alliance
  • Ph.D., Industrial Organizational Psychology, Colorado State University
  • M.S., Industrial Organizational Psychology, Colorado State University
  • B.A., Psychology, Metropolitan State College of Denver

Affiliations and Membership:

  • Global Assessor Pool, Advisory Board Member
  • Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology
  • American College of Healthcare Executives
  • Chicago Healthcare Executive Forum
  • Industrial Organizational Psychology Association of Colorado

Recent Publications and Presentations:

  • Discovering and Preparing Your Physician Leaders - August 2011
  • Mapping Your Career Trajectory: Staying on Track in the Midst of Dazzling Distractions - January 2011
  • Sustainable Physician Partnerships: How Interventions Can Save Investments - October 2010
  • Gender Differences in Negotiation: Utilizing Negotiation Skills to Close the Wage Gap - June 2010
  • Maximizing Organizational Change Strategies - September 2008
  • A Woman's Journey to Executive Success: Navigating the Labyrinth - October 2008
  • Strategic Thinking for Better Results - July 2007
  • Using Coaching in a Leadership Role - July 2007
  • Effectively Utilizing Leadership Power - April 2007

What surprises Lara:
That people will continue to do work that does not engage their passion, hold personal meaning to them or allow them to utilize their greatest strengths, when they could be having a much more exciting and personally fulfilling work experience.

What inspires Lara:
When individuals have the life-altering experience of recognizing their personal and authentic greatness for the first time.

How Lara stays current on industry trends:
Reading healthcare publications, attending seminars and webinars, seeking multiple perspectives by listening to and asking questions of stakeholders who represent different interests within the industry.

How Lara stays current in the field of leadership:
Reading multiple books and publications, research, attending conferences, talking with other leadership experts, social media outlets, listening to organizational leaders' concerns and solutions, watching my clients implement leadership principles in an innovative or personally authentic way.

Email: lsummers@medi-leadership.org

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