Category Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me? — Humble Inquiry, Part 1

Humble Inquiry leads to open communication

Once, when a Chief Medical Officer, I rolled out a night call schedule that failed three weeks in. The team had seen what was coming; they just didn't tell me. The reason wasn't a communication failure — it was an asking failure. Drawing on Ed and Peter Schein's Humble Inquiry, this post explores why physicians, trained to be the person in the room with the answer, struggle to ask real questions when they move into leadership. It introduces the Scheins' four types of inquiry — humble, diagnostic, confrontive, and process-oriented — and shows how most physician leaders unknowingly default to confrontive questions that teach their teams to confirm a hypothesis rather than share what they actually see.

Why Psychological Safety Is Not About Being Nice

which kind of open door do you have

A nurse once told me the truth only when the doctor in charge was away. That is what a lack of psychological safety looks like in healthcare: not loud fear, but quiet calculation. When people cannot say what needs to be said in the room, truth starts traveling through hallways and whispers. And when that happens, leaders are not hearing reality. They are hearing what feels safe.

How Professionalism Becomes Armor That Hurts Leadership

All leaders wear armor that keeps them distant from their teams

Every leader wears armor. Most don't realize they're wearing it. Over-reliance on data. Excessive use of jargon and buzzwords. Cynicism disguised as realism. These forms of armor often punish the very behaviors that build trust. Your armor may have served you at some point. The question is whether it's still serving you now — or whether it's keeping your team from trusting you enough to follow where you're trying to lead.

Why Vulnerability Feels So Dangerous to Physician Leaders

excercising authority vs being open is one of the key tensions every leader must manage

Medical training teaches many things directly, but it also teaches a lot without ever saying it out loud. One of the unspoken lessons is: never look uncertain. So doctors develop habits that help them succeed in clinical work. They project confidence before they fully feel it. They hide uncertainty while they think. They sound clear, even when the situation is not. But when doctors move into leadership roles, these same habits can quietly undermine trust. Patients want reassurance, but teams want honesty. Patients look for confidence, while teams need openness. They need a different kind of trust.

Why Physician Leaders Often Feel Like They Don’t Belong

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.

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