Leadership Lessons They Don't Teach in Medical School
Leadership Lessons They Don't Teach in Medical School
A new JAMA viewpoint argues that physician well-being needs both comfort and meaning. It's a thoughtful framework, but and an incomplete one. What's missing is agency: the ability of physicians to shape the systems they work in, not just survive them. That requires leadership skills most doctors were never taught, but can learn.
Whatever your message, someone has said it before. And someone will say it again. But when you say it with your story — your thoughts, your memories, your joy, your pain — that's when it becomes unforgettable. The final installment of this series covers the last two lessons: show yourself, and have fun. Together, they explain why ChatGPT can write a speech about your topic but can't write your speech, and why both showing yourself and having fun are indispensable to becoming a voice that moves.
Someone told me they practiced their speech while walking their dog. "Do you say it out loud?" I asked. "No," they said. That's not practicing — that's thinking. Part 3 of the series about lessons I learned from my Toastmasters contest last year covers two lessons about preparation: practice aloud to find the words make you stumble, and rehearse with real people to find out if your message actually lands.
Would you pay four people to do a job one person could do better? So why do we do that with words? Part 2 of this series covers two tightly linked lessons: make every word earn its place, and tell the truth without being boring. Together, they explain why cutting 44% of the words from one paragraph made it hit harder — and why a CMO's no-brainer proposal to imrove care took a whole year to make happen.
Last year, a 7-minute speech took me to the semifinals of the World Championship of Public Speaking. Along the way, I learned seven lessons about communication that apply far beyond any contest stage. The first and most important: your only obligation when you speak is to the people listening. Not to your ego, your thoroughness, or your desire to be complete. This is Part 1 of a four-part series.
There's a moment many physician leaders know but rarely discuss. You're in a meeting discussing money and metrics. And you're thinking about what the numbers don't capture burned-out colleagues, the rushed patients, the values quietly eroding. You wonder whether you are cut out for this. Drawing on Abraham Zaleznik's research on "once-born" vs "twice-born" personalities, this post explores why the discomfort of not quite fitting in might be your most valuable leadership asset. The loneliness isn't a bug. It might be the entire feature. This is the last post in a series based on a classic article from HBR.
Most physicians are uncomfortable with power. They went into medicine to help people, not control them. So when leadership starts to feel political, many doctors retreat. But, power doesn't disappear when you avoid it. It simply moves elsewhere. Often to people with different values and less clinical grounding. This post explores why learning ethical influence isn't selling out. It's the only way to protect what matters most. This is part 3 of 4 in the series on physician leadership based on a classic HBR article by Abraham Zalzenik.
Doctors are trained to be right quickly and precisely. In leadership, that same reflex can quietly erode trust. This post explores why rushing to correct concerns often makes physician leaders less credible, not more — and what to do instead.