Leading like a jazz conductor, not a classical maestro | Mark Walton
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Hospitals are messy, complex, adaptive systems.
In this episode, I speak with Mark Walton, President and CEO of Guelph General Hospital. Together, we explore what leadership looks like inside one of the messiest systems we have: a community hospital under relentless pressure. We'll learn lessons to get through the mess.
Mark traces his health care journey from a 17-year-old ward clerk to finally realising his teenage dream of becoming a hospital CEO and why he cried in the middle of Canadian Tire when he got the call offering him the role of his dreams.
He makes the case that hospitals and universities as a different species of organisation and are really complex adaptive systems that don't act like a traditional business. They are mission-driven, financially constrained, and constantly juggling patient care, staff well-being, community trust, donors, and regulators.
Mark shares what he learned in previous roles, leading Ontario’s COVID-19 response: the importance of naming uncertainty, the long shadow of trauma on health-care workers, and a powerful story of learning a key leadership lesson by stepping into the “cracks between systems” to support migrant farm workers when “no help was coming.”
Along the way, he talks about AI in healthcare, the loneliness of the CEO role, why he leads more like a jazz conductor than a classical maestro, and how music, teaching, and rest help him stay grounded.
It's a candid, hopeful conversation about complexity, values, and leading humans in a system that never sleeps.
In this episode, I speak with Mark Walton, President and CEO of Guelph General Hospital. Together, we explore what leadership looks like inside one of the messiest systems we have: a community hospital under relentless pressure. We'll learn lessons to get through the mess.
Mark traces his health care journey from a 17-year-old ward clerk to finally realising his teenage dream of becoming a hospital CEO and why he cried in the middle of Canadian Tire when he got the call offering him the role of his dreams.
He makes the case that hospitals and universities as a different species of organisation and are really complex adaptive systems that don't act like a traditional business. They are mission-driven, financially constrained, and constantly juggling patient care, staff well-being, community trust, donors, and regulators.
Mark shares what he learned in previous roles, leading Ontario’s COVID-19 response: the importance of naming uncertainty, the long shadow of trauma on health-care workers, and a powerful story of learning a key leadership lesson by stepping into the “cracks between systems” to support migrant farm workers when “no help was coming.”
Along the way, he talks about AI in healthcare, the loneliness of the CEO role, why he leads more like a jazz conductor than a classical maestro, and how music, teaching, and rest help him stay grounded.
It's a candid, hopeful conversation about complexity, values, and leading humans in a system that never sleeps.
Chapters
- 00:01 Introduction to Messy and Mark Walton
- 02:24 Mark Walton's journey to hospital CEO
- 05:55 The complexity of public healthcare systems
- 09:11 The 24/7 reality of hospital operations
- 13:30 Lessons from leading during the COVID-19 pandemic
- 18:09 Adapting to each wave of the pandemic
- 19:16 Finding balance as a hospital CEO
- 23:28 The loneliness of leadership and peer support
- 26:57 Learning from failure: the temporary foreign workers story
- 32:21 AI's role in healthcare's future
- 38:07 Leadership wisdom for messy environments
- 42:41 Finding joy amid challenges
