Why Relationships Matter in Health Policy, with Leah McCall Devlin, DDS, MPH

Leah McCall Devlin, DDS, MPH is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. With more than 40 years in public health practice in North Carolina including 10 years as the Wake County Health Director, 8 years as the State Health Director for North Carolina, and many board member positions, Leah is a true advocate for leadership. In this conversation, she shares about the power of leadership in health policy.

Leah is a 1992 Leadership Triangle Goodmon Fellow (the first class!).

I used to say that the most important symbol of public health, when I was a local health director and a state health director, was a cup of coffee. I drank a lot of coffee with a lot of people because I wanted to know them. And I wanted to know them ahead of time before I needed something from them. I wanted to understand their goals, their ideas, and their interests. In public health and leadership, it’s all about relationships.

Owen Jordan: So what brought you to Leadership Triangle’s program? And what year did you participate?

Leah McCall Devlin: So I participated in Leadership Triangle when I was a local health director and I was a local health director between 1986 and 1996. I wanted to participate in Leadership Triangle because public health is a team sport. It requires that everyone is engaged if we’re going to have really good outcomes for our community. So it requires the business community, the media, education, community leaders, elected officials, and everyone to work together if we’re really gonna get serious about improving health in the community. So, what better way than to enter a leadership training program that is going to bring all those different players together.

Owen: How did the first Leadership Triangle program impact you as a person?

Leah: I’m a big fan of leadership development and leadership training. We worked on a project. I can’t remember what my project was, but we did a lot around communications. And everything we do in public health, whether it’s in responding to a pandemic like we’re currently living through with COVID, or you’re communicating with legislators of the importance of a policy around tobacco control, or you’re communicating with pregnant women about how to have a healthy baby — they all require really important communication skills. So we did a lot of training in communications. We did training on partnership development. We also learned about each other’s work, which I think was really important as well. So when you have a partnership that’s functional, it’s not just what I want from you, right? It’s how can we advance our mutual goals together. So, understanding the other person’s organizational needs and goals is really important if you’re going to be able to truly have a collaboration and a partnership.

Owen: And how did the program impact your career or where were you then? And then a little bit about where you are now in your career 30 years later.

Leah: Leadership development through Leadership Triangle set me up with a new set of skills or refined skills. Maybe I already had some emerging interest or capability and wanted help filling in some weak areas and wanted to be inspired. The others in my cohort were also striving to do things differently. And just knowing that you have a cohort of people now that you know really well added a lot of value and strength. Afterward, you can pick up the phone and call them for advice, mentorship, and brainstorming. So that’s really, really valuable to have that kind of relationship with the whole cohort.

I would also tell you that after such a great experience with this program, I took advantage of more opportunities for more leadership development throughout my career For example, as a state health officer, I had the opportunity to participate in national leadership programs designed for state health officials. I also had an opportunity to participate in a year-long leadership development program that was funded by the Ford Foundation. So, I think it’s really fair to say that Leadership Triangle launched me into a career of appreciating the importance of leadership training.

Owen: What does leadership look like in the health policy field?

Leah: When you’re making health policy, you really have to work together with other leaders. Whether it’s from the faith community or informal leaders from communities, other experts or business, media, and academic partners — you have to reach out to them. I used to say that the most important symbol of public health when I was a local health director and a state health director was a cup of coffee. I drank a lot of coffee with a lot of people because I wanted to know them. And I wanted to know them ahead of time before I needed something from them. I wanted to understand their goals, their ideas, and their interests. In public health and leadership, it’s all about relationships. And so knowing people ahead of time was better than handing out your business card in the middle of an emergency. We need each other. So, having relationships is really important to leadership.

Also, there’s that notion that if you want to go quickly, go by yourself, but if you really want to go far, you go together. So, you have to have these partnerships to have a true impact. Public health is very complex.

The problems we are trying to solve are very complicated and we’re dealing with the symptoms of problems in other sectors of society, whether it’s poverty or housing or lack of education, and lack of opportunity. We need to address these issues with our partners who are primarily focused on that if we’re going to be able to improve health. The kind of leadership that helps you reach out to others in partnership and engage in community is really, really important. I think communication is a really important skill for leaders as well.

When you’re working on policy and the more you can work on system changes the greater the impact you’re going to have. For example, for me, early in my career, I became really concerned that we sent children off to spend the better part of their day for the better part of the year in the schools where there weren’t health services. And so, we began working on a whole child, whole-school program, whole community concept — -we were working on nutrition, physical activity, injury prevention, mental health, and responsible sexual behavior… Managing crisis illnesses is really important for children to be successful in school. The child that’s sitting there with a toothache, do we really expect them to pay attention when their tooth is killing them? There’s the child that can’t even get to school because mom’s home with asthma and has nobody to help her. She’s not well enough to get up, get her child dressed, and out the door and over to the school. So dealing with a family as a whole is important, but dealing with that school system is another really important approach. So policy system changes done in collaborative leadership can catalyze creating these vitally important health services. And having those skills that a program like Leadership Triangle can give you is just amazing.