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The president of Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside traces his leadership to a boss who kept his composure, a housekeeper who asked leaders to say hello, and his own stress as a young psychiatric counselor. He tells Glenn Llopis what those lessons look like in a hospital today.
Scott Kashman
President, Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside, Jacksonville, Florida (at the time of recording)
Ascension St. Vincent's Riverside
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Personalization Outbreak podcast
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55
min
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Episode
Authentically ask for feedback and then graciously accept the feedback and then do something about it.
Scott Kashman
Scott Kashman is president of Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, and someone Glenn Llopis has known for three or four years. When Kashman joked that Glenn had already gone off script, Glenn answered:
"in the age of personalization, nothing is scripted." — Glenn Llopis · 00:03:24
Kashman set out to be a psychologist. His mother, who had seen both how much he cared for patients and how much he enjoyed business, suggested healthcare administration as a backup. He took her advice and went to Tulane for graduate school in healthcare administration. Glenn’s point: someone took the time to see him, which is what leaders now have to do for everyone.
At 23, as an administrative resident at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Kashman went with his boss to a legislative hearing. The boss was asking for money the hospital needed to care for the underserved, and he was ridiculed in public. Walking back to the car, he said:
"well, that didn't go exactly as planned, so we'll go back and we'll do it again next time." — Scott Kashman · 00:09:15
He focused on what he could control, went back a couple of months later and got the funding. Kashman decided then whose style he wanted to emulate. Today he pauses to explain why a decision is being made, so it becomes a learning moment. Glenn named that the cycle of reinvention: learning, unlearning, relearning and repeating.
Also at 23, working as a psychiatric counselor, Kashman asked people on the unit about leadership. A housekeeper told him the CEO gave great talks about culture but rarely said hello when he walked past her in the lobby she cleaned.
"just be kind, like just say hello to someone. Like it's a big deal for me if the CEO would say hello to me." — Scott Kashman · 00:17:12
He also learned about stress firsthand, as caseloads grew from six patients a shift to ten. He found balance in exercise and in waiting tables at a comedy club. The lessons stuck: be kind, give people the tools to do their jobs, listen to the front line, and let people bring what restores them into the workday.
For Kashman, empathy starts with the habit at the top of this page. The hard part comes after the asking:
"That means don't get defensive when people give it to you." — Scott Kashman · 00:24:23
Along with formal rounds, he and his human resources executive hold small round-table conversations about the culture, and they are:
"trying to get it to seven layers deep on that empathy and the culture" — Scott Kashman · 00:26:29
That runs from his office to the front line, including nights, weekends, medical staff and volunteers. Informally, he eats in the cafeteria and walks the halls:
"find yourself in places you don't usually go." — Scott Kashman · 00:27:21
For years he has asked departments to put him to work for two or three hours at a time, whether that means holding supplies in an operating room or watching a robotic knee replacement:
"I want to get a sense of your world, what's working well, what's not." — Scott Kashman · 00:34:57
"that was the art of bridging silos." — Glenn Llopis · 00:37:23
Informal listening matters because formal reports miss things. At a previous organization, Kashman heard through several frontline channels that critical care nurses were about to leave. Senior leaders told him he didn’t have his ear to the ground.
"it came back to bite them. Within three days, they had 23 people who resigned." — Scott Kashman · 00:45:01
"you may not have your ear to the ground as well as you think you do. So, it's important to stay humble." — Scott Kashman · 00:45:16
For physicians, the boardroom in his administrative suite becomes the physician dining room once a month, and every physician’s badge opens the administration doors:
"They know they're part of the administrative team because their badge works to our office as well." — Scott Kashman · 00:47:14
The alternative, he says, is a locked door and physicians who feel helpless. What keeps him optimistic is simple:
"almost 100% of people decided they want to go into health care because they get to help others" — Scott Kashman · 00:52:38
They were excited to be hired, so when they burn out, leaders own part of it. Kashman also appears in Glenn’s Forbes piece Reimagining A New Era Of Entrepreneurial Leadership In A Complex World, on the hospital’s Lead Like a CEO leadership lab.
Kashman told Glenn Llopis that his hospital holds small round-table conversations about the culture, led by him and his human resources executive, with the goal of reaching every level from his office to the front line, including nights, weekends, medical staff and volunteers.
He told Glenn Llopis that once a month the administrative boardroom becomes the physician dining room, and physicians’ badges open the administration offices. Kashman says that open door gives physicians voice and influence and helps with burnout.
Working two or three hours at a time inside a department shows Kashman what is working and what isn’t, and it builds trust. Glenn Llopis called it the art of bridging silos: taking the initiative instead of pointing silos out.
Glenn Llopis is The Identity Catalyst. For more than twenty years he has helped leaders and organizations reclaim the identity they edited away and lead from earned conviction. He is a Forbes contributor, the author of six books, and the founder of Glenn Llopis Group.
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This page is the original work of Glenn Llopis and is protected by copyright. Quotations are drawn from a recorded conversation and are attributed to the speaker. The page may not be republished, reproduced, distributed or adapted, in whole or in part, in print, online or by AI tools, without prior written consent. You are welcome to share the link or quote a brief excerpt with credit to Glenn Llopis and a link back to this page. Guests featured here are welcome to share and excerpt their own interview. For permission requests, contact solutions@glennllopisgroup.com.
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