Lack of Training: Leader overload
“No one said great leadership is easy,” notes Clarissa Barnes, MD in a recent article for the American Association for Physician Leaders. “In fact, in the changing health care landscape of shrinking margins and increasing concerns for quality and patient satisfaction, health care leadership is increasingly difficult.”
And that is where we pick up again today. I will admit to you freely that writing continually about the problems in our industry can be draining. Yet, I know that if we wish to be true leaders in our profession, we must not shy away from the issues we face.
There is a large amount of scholarship on physician overload and burnout. Physician burnout is not a problem to ignore, certainly, but it is not the subject we’ll discuss today. We’re headed further up the chain.
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. Succeeding as a physician and succeeding as a physician leader require different sets of skills. If you’re a leader struggling with overload at work, you’re not alone. And you can’t help others until you help yourself. It’s a common metaphor I use — In the event of a plane crash, you must put on your own oxygen mask first BEFORE you can help others. The best way to be an effective leader — invest in your own leadership.
Eventual Burnout
Because if you don’t, we know where the road of overload leads — straight to burnout-town. An overwhelmingly frustrating aspect of this issue, is that often leaders are aware of these problems (how could you not be?) but have difficulty strategizing, implementing, and tackling these problems to any positive end. Even excellent ones (like yourself) feel they’re constantly banging their heads against a wall.
You’re voraciously consuming the latest blogs, podcasts, articles, and books to try to find workable tactics to implement in their workplaces. It’s difficult to wade through the excess of seemingly viable information and create a systematic framework that will guide their organization long-term. And in the absence of a system or a plan to implement such systematic conversations, often even the most well-meaning leaders give up or succumb to eventual burnout.