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"Ten Years of Everything I Had": What a Former Nurse Turned Health System President Teaches Leaders About Keeping Your Word

When was the last time you kept a promise nobody else would have known you broke?

Most of us make one on January first and have quietly broken it by the Super Bowl. So today’s story caught my attention.

What happened

Kevin Sowers began his career in 1985 as an oncology nurse, according to the Johns Hopkins Hub. He spent 32 years at Duke University Health System, the last eight as president and CEO of Duke University Hospital. In 2018 he became president of the Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine. He oversees six hospitals and chairs a physician group with more than 40 outpatient sites, and he guided the system through the COVID-19 pandemic.

On October 22, Johns Hopkins announced that Sowers will retire at the end of 2027, more than 14 months away, as Becker’s Hospital Review also reported.

His reason goes back to the day he arrived. “When I joined Johns Hopkins Medicine in 2018, I made a commitment to the organization and to myself to give 10 years of everything I had to this extraordinary place,” Sowers said in a video message. “And I intend to keep that commitment.”

Theodore DeWeese, CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, wrote that Sowers’ connection to the communities they serve “has always run deeper than his title.” That one could be the motto of this show.

So what does a hospital executive’s retirement announcement have to do with the rest of us? More than you’d think. I took three things from it.

The promises you make to yourself are the real test

Notice how he put it: to the organization, and to myself. A promise to the organization, someone can hold you to. A promise to yourself, nobody is checking.

That’s exactly why it matters. Integrity isn’t how you act when someone is grading you. It’s what you do with the promises only you know about, including the one about the treadmill.

Say it out loud, then live up to it

Sowers didn’t keep his commitment in a drawer. He said it when he arrived and repeated it on his way out.

When leaders name a commitment out loud, they hand everyone else a way to measure them. That’s a little uncomfortable. It’s also how trust gets built. People don’t need perfect leaders. They need leaders whose words and calendars match.

Don’t forget where you started

Before the title, Sowers was a nurse sitting with cancer patients and their families on some of the hardest days of their lives. Reading the announcement, you get the sense he never stopped being that nurse.

Over my career, I’ve noticed that the leaders people trust most usually remember what the work felt like before they were in charge. They remember the night shift. They remember being the new one. Rank can move you up the org chart. It shouldn’t move you away from the people doing the work.

Everything, or whatever’s left

“Everything I had” is a big promise. Most of us don’t give everything for ten years. We give everything for a few months, and then we give whatever’s left.

Deciding up front what you’re going to give, and for how long, might be what keeps “everything” from slowly turning into “whatever’s left.”

Rank is earned. Leadership is demonstrated.

Sometimes leadership is demonstrated in something as quiet as keeping your word, years after you gave it.

So here’s the question I’m asking myself: what promise did I make when I took this job, to my people and to myself? Am I still keeping it? And if not, what would it take to start again on the next shift?

Sources: Johns Hopkins Hub, Becker’s Hospital Review.