On Thursday, Leadership Health Care was honored to welcome Joey Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Acadia Healthcare, for a candid discussion about the behavioral health industry, his 35-year career and achieving professional success.
Jacobs has extensive experience in the behavioral health industry. Before joining Acadia as chairman and CEO in 2011, he served as chairman, president, CEO and co-founder of Psychiatric Solutions, Inc., for 13 years. He also served in various capacities with HCA for 21 years, most recently as president of the Tennessee division.
In Jacobs’ two years with Acadia, it has grown from a six-facility behavioral health company into a 46-facility, 3,700-bed, national company expected to achieve $1 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2014.
In addition to discussing the landscape for the behavioral health industry and effects of health care reform on psychiatric care, Jacobs offered the audience a wealth of advice on leadership, including the following:
- Smile. It’s OK to have fun.
- Believe in what you’re doing.
- Be timely in your decision making.
- Take risks.
- Be thankful.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously.
- Calming fears and building trust with your colleagues gives you more influence in an organization.
- Build a great company culture. Celebrate together. Know your employees’ families and care about one another.
- Hire the best people you can find, but also give people second chances.
- Never give up.
The discussion with Joey Jacobs is part of ongoing LHC programming, offering members insight from C-level industry leaders in a small-group setting. For more information about Leadership Health Care, visit www.leadershiphealthcare.com.