Leadership Lessons They Don't Teach in Medical School
Leadership Lessons They Don't Teach in Medical School
Most hospitals display their mission statement by the entrance, but it rarely comes up in leadership meetings. In this post, I explore why organizational purpose often remains just for show, how passion can sometimes lead to burnout, and Daniel Pink's idea that a clear purpose is only one of three things that make work meaningful.
Before I could explain it, a sickly childhood taught me this about good doctors: They make you feel better before you actually start getting better. Years later, Simon Sinek's "Start With Why" gave the lesson a name. This post walks through Simon Sinek's Golden Circle — Why, How, What — and pairs it with Daniel Pink's research on purpose, autonomy and mastery as drivers of motivation. It includes a short exercise to find your own Why, a candid admission that this blog’s Why only became clear to the author a year into writing it, and a bedside technique borrowed from addiction medicine: asking a patient why they want to change instead of telling them why they should.
As a debate rages over whether business schools should close, physicians already know where purpose comes from. Medicine instills the Why. What nobody teaches is how to say it. Through the story of a residency faculty member who pushed trainees to see patients faster with no reason beyond “that’s real life,” this post shows what fills that silence, and offers one fix: the “Because” Test.