Yes, you are a leader
If you've ever wished you could just "do your job" and not have to deal with the peopleyness of it all 🙃... you might be resisting the reality that being a healthcare professional is - at its core - being a leader.
But of course, like most things I talk about, this is not something we were taught at university.
As far as managing or communicating with our patients goes, most of us just learn to "give advice". And then we become frustrated and judgemental about the fact that they don't just do what we say. Or we descend into our familiar "I'm the worst" spiral.
But the truth is, we never learned how to LEAD people.
To inspire them to move. To change and grow.
Helping them overcome their own resistance and obstacles.
Listening deeply and seeking to genuinely understand them.
We never learned how to offer different perspectives, and learn different perspectives from them.
To serve them with everything we do.
To actually model the things we expect of our patients (instead of just telling them)
We didn't know that being a clinician involves creating a strong philosophy for how you approach patient care.
Collaborating with your patients to co-create the outcome they truly want.
Empowering them with tools to manage their symptoms outside of your office.
And being willing to innovate and challenge the status quo of how things are done in your profession or field.
And you might resist the idea of being a leader, either because you think that you're just "not that kind of person" or because it will add to the already-heavy load of being a clinician.
But I call BS on both 😉
I genuinely believe we need all types of leaders and you certainly don't need to be aggressive, dominating, charismatic or extraverted in order to lead. In fact, many of the best leaders are none of those things.
And truly embracing and building the skills of leadership will actually make your load lighter as a clinician, not to mention help your patients more and create a far more fulfilling career.
If you want to listen to more about this topic of clinicians as (accidental) leaders, you can do so in this week's podcast. Click on the button below to access it:
