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Early in my career, I realized I had been trained well for examining, treating, and prescribing for my patients. I also realized that being trained as an optometrist is completely different than being trained to practice optometry or manage a practice. I wasn't prepared for managing the business of a practice: hiring, managing, training, and leading employees.
By the time I realized I was unprepared, it was, of course, impossible to return to step one and start over. I was a business owner and my success was on the line. For the first three years of my practice, I read all of the books I could find on how to better manage my practice. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that while management is important, what I really struggled with was how to separate management from leadership. Managing is done to employees. Leadership is done with employees. I was a good clinician and a good manager, but it was not until I became a good leader that the practice began to grow exponentially. Staff turnover became virtually nonexistent, and I began looking forward to going to the office each day.
What gives a doctor the right to lead?
It certainly isn't because they own the business or have earned the title, "Doctor." Positions, titles, ranks, or degrees don't qualify anyone to lead others, nor does the ability to lead come automatically with age or experience. Ever heard of the "natural born leader?" Many people feel that if they weren't born a leader, they will never be one. While it's true that some have a natural or innate ability to lead, others become strong leaders by first acknowledging that they aren't a "natural born leader" and then learning, honing, and practicing leadership skills that serve them quite well.
Whether you are a natural born leader, a student of leadership, or a combination thereof, leadership skills must be groomed and constantly improved. To become the best you can be as a leader, you must put forth constant, purposeful effort and be willing to invest time and resources in your own personal development.
I have learned that we aren't "given" the right to lead. We aren't "assigned" the position of leader. The right or privilege to lead can only be earned. Becoming a leader takes time, requiring devotion and a constant focus on your followers. In fact, one of the most effective means of learning to lead is to allow those who would follow to shape you. Being an effective leader is not about making other people follow, but rather becoming the kind of person they want to follow. You must learn to create and describe a vision that others understand and want to join. Then, you must become the person that others trust to lead them to where the vision guides you.
I've identified 10 Pulse Points to guide you on your quest to becoming a better leader.
1. Put your ego on the shelf. Truly great leaders are not interested in leadership for personal gain. They are servants of those who follow. Great leaders aren't just remembered for the things they accomplished but also the things accomplished by those they lead. When I find myself in a situation where a patient thinks I've solved their problem, I accept their thanks and explain how I couldn't have done it without my staff. While I might have made the diagnosis, it wouldn't have been possible without the data gathered by my staff and the insights they often share.
If you really want people in your organization to follow, you must be willing to share (and pull them into) the spotlight, recognizing them for a job well done (which often goes unnoticed).
2. First, learn to follow. It's difficult to become an effective leader if you don't first learn to become a good follower. The United State Military Academy is perhaps one of the most recognized leadership institutions in the world. It teaches its officers to first become effective followers. Consider that West Point has produced more leaders than the Harvard Business School. While you, as a functioning part of the organization, can be subordinate to another, your willingness to follow is greatly enhanced by mutual respect.
3. Create positive relationships. Leadership is a function of influence, which means it is, by nature, relational. Today's generation of leaders seem particularly aware of this and demonstrate through their actions that their followers as individuals are more important than their titles and positions. Today's leader knows that before people go along, they must get along.
Because I had started my practice cold, I learned to perform every task and job in the business. There was nothing I asked my employees to do that I hadn't done, wouldn't still help them do, and would do on my own if necessary. In 1993, I built a building to house our rapidly growing practice. The staff and I were all happy to have a kitchen in the office so that eating lunch could be a more relaxing and enjoyable break in the middle of a busy day.
Because the cleaning crew only came in on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, it was necessary for someone to take the trash from the kitchen to the outside trash container on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In staff meetings, we made the decision that because everyone benefited from the use of the kitchen, everyone should take a turn cleaning and taking out the trash. I had 13 employees at the time, and my office manager organized a schedule to rotate the responsibility for cleaning the kitchen among those 13 staff members. During staff meeting, I raised my hand and suggested that because I was going to use the kitchen like everyone else, I should take a turn cleaning the kitchen once every 14 weeks. It wasn't a big deal and it didn't take much time, but my pitching in was only fair - and a great way to demonstrate my willingness to do anything the staff was asked to do.
4. Strive for excellence. No one respects or follows mediocrity, at least not for very long. Those who earn the privilege to lead have committed themselves totally to what they do. Leaders lend not only their skills and talents, but also great passion and dedication, performing on the highest level of which they are capable.
Demonstrating a commitment to the same standards of excellence that I expected from staff doesn't mean I did everything right the first time. I was always striving for excellence, but it didn't always come from my first efforts. Many times, I had to do things several times to get the results I wanted, results that met my standards of excellence. The process of doing - and doing again until I had done my best - was a process I thought was useful for my staff to see. The lesson I taught by sharing my shortfalls, mistakes, and the extra effort it took to finally get things right is excellence is not always the result of your first effort, but rather the result of setting your sights and dedicating yourself to reaching your goal. There are many good lessons learned from making mistakes, so the only costly mistakes are those where nothing is learned.
5. Rely on principles, not emotions. Leadership is often easy during the good times. It's easy to lead when there are no budget constraints, competitive threats, or organizational turmoil. But when everything seems to be against you, you're out of energy, and you don't want to lead, that's when you earn your place as a leader.
In every phase of life, leaders face crucial moments when they must choose between pushing onward or retreating. Leaders make it through those times by relying on tested principles and experience rather than knee-jerk emotional reactions. When you make a tough decision that benefits others above yourself, you're making decisions like a leader. Making a principle-based decision that's in the best interest of your employees is perhaps the best way to demonstrate your commitment and dedication to putting your team first.
There were many times over the course of my career when I would have liked an increase in my personal income; instead, I tightened my belt so that I could give my staff raises that were deserved and necessary to keeping them motivated to growing the business. I viewed raises for my staff rather than myself as an investment in the business that would ultimately benefit everyone, including me when the time was right.
6. Make enriching the lives of others your mantra. Leaders whose legacies are revered long after they're gone helped people live better lives, reach beyond their comfort zones, and achieve their full potential. Perhaps the highest calling of leadership, its highest value, is in what you can help others become.
Maybe it's the teacher in me or my interest in seeing others learn, but one of my greatest pleasures has always been helping people accomplish things that they either didn't know or didn't believe they could accomplish. This must stem from my childhood: To say I wasn't a good student would be an understatement of monstrous proportion. At a young age, I was labeled as that kid who was capable but didn't apply myself. Lazy. I could have done better.
It wasn't until I was in ninth grade that Edwin P. Heinrich, headmaster at St. Johns Country Day School recognized that I was bright enough to be admitted to the prep school. He saw that I was a visual learner and needed to get my hands on things before I was in command of the knowledge. The only times Dr. Heinrich ever showed any frustration or displeasure with me was when he asked me to perform some classroom calculation and I responded that I couldn't. (He told me in private after the class that the correct response was that I didn't know how, not that I couldn't.) To be a leader is to be a teacher, and the difference between can and can't is a not a matter of how your employees learn, but rather how you as a leader teach.
Helping your employees become more knowledgeable positions them to accept greater responsibility. The more responsibility they can accept, the more valuable they are, and the more valuable they are, the more they should be compensated. I followed this logic throughout my career, and it's the best way I've found to increase job satisfaction and eliminate employee turnover.
7. The gift of power. A common mistake made by novice leaders is trying too hard to hold on to power. One of the ironies of leadership is that the more power you pass to your followers, the more powerful you become. I encourage my clients to see themselves more as a river than as a reservoir. Sharing your power strengthens others in your organization, extending your influence far beyond your own sphere.
A professional practice of any kind has one common limiting variable: time. By delegating tasks to employees who have been trained and entrusted with responsibility, you can maximize the amount of work accomplished, the number of patients seen, and the number of problems solved. Any professional practice, from dentistry to optometry, can benefit from investing in its employees. Remember, many hands make light work.
8. Seek counsel from those who follow. Regardless of how smart leaders may be, or how much experience they may have, seeking advice and direction from their followers always makes their decisions better. Decisions made with consideration for the input and experiences of those the decisions affect are always superior to what the leader can discern alone.
You may spend thousands of dollars flying in a consultant to solve a problem at your company. Then, when the consultant is finished and gone, it's up to you and your employees to live with the consequences of the consultant's plan. Think of your staff as your inside consultants. Your staff members are intimately familiar with every facet of your practice, and more often than not, they can give you better advice with less expense and in less time than an outside consultant. Moreover, after the decisions are made and the advice is executed, your staff members are still around to tweak the solution for peak performance. They know (or will learn) that the advice they give today is what they must live with tomorrow.
9. Share praise, and take responsibility. As a leader, any praise or positive recognition you receive should always be redirected to your staff or followers. Criticism and negative comments should always be deflected away from them. As a leader, one assumes final responsibility for performance and never uses followers as a scapegoat for blame. In my practice, I found that my staff members recognized the shielding I did on their behalf. They felt confident that I had their back. You can't expect your staff to focus on moving your practice forward if they must constantly look over their shoulder. I'm not saying that issues shouldn't be addressed if staff members make an error, or that staff shouldn't take responsibility for the actions; but they need to know that you are there to stand up for them when they have done their best and things just didn't work out the way everyone wanted.
10. Be forthright in all things. Above all, your staff must know that you are consistently honest. This honesty is perhaps best described as doing the right thing in every situation, even if it is to your disadvantage. The leader does the right thing when no one is looking and when no one would ever know.
Your verbal communication and body language speak volumes, not only to your patients but also to your staff. Your staff should constantly put themselves in the patient's shoes to give the best service. You lead by example. Do you demonstrate fairness? Employers who speak to patients respectfully until they leave but then disrespectfully after they're gone clearly communicate that they might do the same thing to staff members.
As the leader, you are an example for everyone who follows you. Make sure that your staff catches you doing the right thing for both them and your patients, in every situation. If you make a mistake, your staff knows it, so own up to it in front of them. If you mishandled a patient encounter and need to apologize, or you reconsider your advice to a patient, let your staff know about your feelings and your intentions to rectify the situation. Nothing breeds honesty more than the example you set for your staff. A foundation of integrity for both patients and staff is the best foundation of all.
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