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Posts tagged leadership coaching

Wellbeing: The Wrap-Up Episode!

Wellbeing: The Wrap-Up Episode!

What’s been discovered within the realm of physician (and other healthcare professionals) wellbeing, is startling, to say the least. The healthcare industry can be highly toxic, resulting in unprecedented levels of depression, suicide, suicidal ideations, physician turnover, presenteeism, and general dissatisfaction with work and life. But the condition that precedes these and is most readily associated with physician wellbeing is burnout. This, above all, is what we must be working against in our field.

Domains of Wellbeing: Work Life

Domains of Wellbeing: Work Life

A quick internet search reveals models developed by different writers, bloggers, consultants, and therapists. While the word domain has many definitions, for our purposes we will use, “a sphere of knowledge, influence, or activity.” With this definition, we can safely narrow down the domains we will discuss as relevant to personal wellbeing.

Success, CoachingHarjot SinghAugust 3, 2021work remotely, remote, remote work, Leadership, leadership expert, leadership coaching, leader, leadership, health, healthcare leadership, healthcare leadership coaching, healthcare coaching, healthcare, healthcare expertComment

The Ladder of Wellbeing: Four Steps to THRIVE

The Ladder of Wellbeing: Four Steps to THRIVE

The field of wellbeing has significantly expanded the study of the spectrum of human experience. Instead of having only two polarizing options—wellbeing and illness—there are intermediate states where neither true wellbeing nor illness are present.

Success, Leadership, HealthcareHarjot SinghJuly 6, 2021lead, Leadership, leader, leadership expert, lead remotely, leadership coaching, engagement, enlightened business, authenticity, wellbeing, flourish, thriveComment

Wellbeing Made Easy: Two Types of Wellbeing You Need to THRIVE!

Wellbeing Made Easy: Two Types of Wellbeing You Need to THRIVE!

In recent years, wellbeing has arrived as a science, complete with research and applications. But as a concept, it has existed for millennia. Religious leaders, poets, writers, and (in the last century) secular self-help experts have written about it ad nauseum. It’s no wonder our modern world is fascinated and mesmerized by the concept.

What Happens to Organizations WITHOUT Effective Engagement Programs?

What Happens to Organizations WITHOUT Effective Engagement Programs?

The verdict is in. The research is clear. Individuals who are actively engaged in their work have higher levels of personal wellbeing and productivity, plus lower levels of burnout.

Physician leaders looking to engage their team should avoid these mistakes and ask the important questions.

In an ideal world, leaders are able to work with their organization to build an effective engagement program. But alas, we are often not in the utopia we dream of.

So we ask: what happens when organizations refuse to create effective engagement programs and invest in their employees?

4 Questions Physician Leaders Should Strive to Answer

4 Questions Physician Leaders Should Strive to Answer

Recently, we’ve discussed the lack of flow in many physician’s daily work life and how that lack of flow, over time, leads to a disengaged and dangerously burnt out team of physicians. We’ve also outlined 5 important mistakes for physician leaders to avoid when putting in place an engagement plan. In addition to avoiding mistakes, every physician leader striving to form an effective, engaged, and highly functioning team, must be asking the following four questions.

5 Mistakes Physician Leaders Should Avoid

5 Mistakes Physician Leaders Should Avoid

Approximately 29% of healthcare organizations have an engagement program (MGMA 2018), which sounds like good news. The problem is that typically these programs are disjointed and separate from other programs that have direct bearing on physician engagement. For example, hospitals will have a burnout of wellbeing program that is completely separate from an engagement program, which ignores the important truths that, one, burnout is the opposite of engagement and, two, engagement is a fundamental element of wellbeing. Since we know that burnout and engagement are the opposite ends of the same spectrum (Maslach et al, 2014), we must keep in mind both burnout and engagement when designing a program to engage physicians.

Individual vs. Organizational Engagement

Individual vs. Organizational Engagement

We know that the ability to achieve a flow state regularly in one’s profession is a key indicator of a physician’s ability to engage in their work. It follows that achieving a flow state consistently should be (so often it’s not!) a priority of organizational management and leadership.

Yet, engagement is more than just flow.

What is "Flow" and how does it contribute to Physician Engagement?

What is "Flow" and how does it contribute to Physician Engagement?

Since we’re already well-versed in why low levels of engagement are a problem, let’s move on to what’s needed to create engagement, i.e. flow.

Engagement at an individual level has been studied for nearly five decades and there is significant research to bolster this claim. Positive psychology has contributed the most to studying the connection between engagement and flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi popularized the concept of flow as he researched creativity and productivity and conducted interviews with people who were successful in a wide range of professions.

Why are Physician Leaders afraid to hire an executive coach?

Why are Physician Leaders afraid to hire an executive coach?

The data speaks for itself, every physician leader should have an executive coach. But when push comes to shove, many shy away from hiring one and never take the steps necessary to improve their leadership and career. Why is this? What’s holding leaders back?

Lack of Accountability

Lack of Accountability

But this isn’t just a “doctor problem”, it exists on the leadership side as well. Physician leaders are pressured to put new initiatives in place and check boxes that they’ve provided “programs” (there’s a vague word) for physician engagement. Rarely are they asked to collect and analyze data about how these programs perform or how they impact the team’s quality of life.

Lack of Connectivity

Lack of Connectivity

To recap briefly (if you’ve been following the whole time feel free to skip this opening paragraph), we’ve been spending this fall semester bravely wading through the many, varied and interwoven problems in the healthcare industry. More specifically, we’ve been looking at issues related to physician overwhelm and burnout as well as leadership’s responsibilities to work toward a solution.

Lack of Trust

Lack of Trust

While lack of trust in any workplace a serious threat, in the healthcare industry, it’s literally a matter of life or death. Lack of trust comes as the culmination of many of the problems already unpacked and discussed. Because physician training is so far removed from Chief Medical Officer (CMO) or physician leader training (or lack thereof), it’s easy to understand why physicians may be wary of their CMO’s motives.

Lack of Training: Leader overload

Lack of Training: Leader overload

Leaders are often saddled with the ultimate responsibility for physician burnout, which is a fair point. However, an untrained leader who is unable to successfully inhabit their own role is not equipped to help others avoid career pitfalls that they themselves have not avoided.

Lack of Training: Leadership is MORE than Management

Lack of Training: Leadership is MORE than Management

This week we begin to tackle another sizeable problem in the healthcare field: lack of training. A kingpin of the problems in our field, the lack of adequate training for physician leaders steers the entire industry into a quagmire from which it’s nearly impossible to extract ourselves. The position of physician leader is still relatively new and, thankfully, evolving.

Lack of Engagement: Misunderstood Motives

Lack of Engagement: Misunderstood Motives

Last week, we began exploring the lack of engagement pervasive across the healthcare industry. Nearly every healthcare professional, physicians in particular, will be subject to this struggle at least once during their career. Often, healthcare leaders misunderstand this apparent lack of engagement as a physician withholding their “best effort”, as mentioned last week, which leads us deeper into the chasm of misunderstood motives.

Lack of Training: When's the Time?

Lack of Training: When's the Time?

It feels strange, because a physician is arguably one of the “most-trained” positions in the modern world. Physicians spend longer in higher education that any other profession. Yet the career transition from physician to physician leader involves minimal and inadequate preparation in the best of situations.

Why aren’t our physician leaders as well prepared for their role as physicians are? And what can we do to change this for the future?

One of the reasons physician leaders aren’t properly trained is they aren’t given time.

Lack of Communication: Too Little, Too Late

Lack of Communication: Too Little, Too Late

As outlined, a major problem in the healthcare industry is lack of quality communication. Specifically, the fact that one-on-one communication between leaders and physicians is practically non-existent on a day to day basis. One of the mitigating reasons for this lack between physicians and team leaders is the current circumstances under which it currently exists. Spoiler alert: it’s not good.

Lack of Communication: A Two-Way Street

Lack of Communication: A Two-Way Street

The lack of time built into a daily work schedule for quality communication points us to another uncomfortable truth, which is that occasionally (not always everyone, calm down!) physicians can be difficult to talk to. I’ve often heard cited from coaching clients as a reason leaders feel uncomfortable engaging with the physicians on their team. Now, let’s be clear: Leaders, your discomfort speaking to physicians is not a valid reason to let communication fall to the wayside. It’s an excuse and you know the old saying about excuses, right?

Lack of Retention: The Cost of Locums

Lack of Retention: The Cost of Locums

Over the past seven years or so, the medical community has woken up to the pressing issues caused by the systemic and regular use of locum tenens. In the first decade of the 21st century, hospitals regarded locum physicians as life savers, interim workers who can cover shifts when needed and help lighten the load of overworked full-time staff.

Leadership, HealthcareHarjot SinghOctober 6, 2020healthcare coaching, healthcare, health, healthcare leadership, healthcare leadership coaching, teledoc, telehealth, leadership, leadership coaching, true leadership, remote, remote leadershipComment