You are a bright, accomplished professional whose accomplishments have been rewarded with a promotion into a leadership position. But, the training that made you successful as a physician, lawyer, engineer, architect, etc. has not prepared you to lead and inspire others. If you’re like countless others in this situation, your great performance put you in a position that has set you up to experience failure for the first time.
This is an especially acute issue in health care where all of the pressures to increase productivity and reduce health care costs are conspiring to suck the joy out a doctor’s workday. Designed to address the most common challenges we’ve helped physician leaders face over the years, our series of leadership development courses for physicians teach the necessary leadership skills that were not taught in medical school or observed in day-to-day clinical life. And all of our courses include strategies for improving both effectiveness and joy.
Recently, a strategic planning course participant confided that she had been planning to leave her job leading up her physician practice in a leading academic medical center because she felt she had been spread so thin that she could do any of her jobs – as doctor, manager, mother – well and had been feeling like a failure in all three areas. Learning a new framework for setting priorities, creating goals, and managing time effectively has made all the difference for her. First, she found attending her leadership workshop affirming when she learned she wasn’t alone in facing these challenges. Not only does she feel effective once again, she is now able to be fully present and enjoy each of the roles she plays. When she gets overwhelmed, she now has a set of tools she can use to make more efficient use of her limited time. Her patients, employees and family are reaping the benefits of her new-found skills and improved outlook.