Episode 103
103. 3 blocks to physician leadership effectiveness – how get out of your own way!
Ever asked your team a question and got nothing but crickets in response? Let’s break down why that happens and how to fix it!
If you're a straddle leader—someone who balances clinical work with administrative responsibilities—transitioning from giving orders to asking questions can be challenging. The first time you try, you might face silence or awkward responses from your team. In this episode, discover the three reasons why your team might not engage and learn the secret to building trust and boosting engagement.
In this episode you will learn:
~~ The three reasons why your team might not participate when you first start asking them questions rather than giving orders.
~~ Learn why trust is the rocket fuel for team engagement and how you can cultivate it through open, honest, and transparent communication.
~~ Discover how consistency in asking open-ended questions helps to build trust and improve your leadership effectiveness over time.
Tune in now to uncover how to turn awkward silences into active participation by mastering the art of asking questions and building trust with your team!
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Explore physician leadership tools and strategies to stop physician burnout, enhance physician wellness and give you the power of personal influence in the C-Suite. All the tools you need to play your role in leading the charge to wellness - at three levels - for you, your teams and your entire organization.
Transcript
In this episode, I'll share another key lesson for straddle leaders, meaning you're somebody who sees patience and who has an administrative role in the organization.
If you're not somebody who in your administrative role leads by asking questions, if that's not your current style, the first time you try to get your team to participate in a question and answer session, what you're going to probably get is crickets, nervous laughter, looking from side to side, and little or no participation. What I want you to know is you trained him to do that.
And in this episode, I'm going to show you three reasons why it happens and exactly how to drill down to reason number three. It is a word that begins with t and is five letters long.
I'm going to reveal to you the rocket fuel for your team's engagement and for your leadership effectiveness. Ready? Let's get started.
Speaker A:Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of the Stop Physician Burnout podcast, a position leadership podcast where you you will learn the skills so that we can join together and lead the charge to physician well being skills to earn the respect of your colleagues in the front line, skills to exercise true influence in the C suite and take back your job, your practice, your career, and your life. All of these tools have been proven effective in my 40,000 doctor physician coaching and training practice.
And if I know one thing, I know you're super busy. So let's get started.
Speaker A:So in lessons 101 and 102, we went over the two first steps to take as you move from your clinical role to your administrative leader role. First, go ahead and put your hand on your head and say, I'm taking my doctor hat off now.
And let go of your clinical leader role where you lead by giving orders and begin to lead by asking questions. Think of a couple good questions that begin with what or how so they're automatically open ended questions, the most powerful kind.
Gather your team together and go ahead and ask. Hey, everybody, I noticed that we don't have a metric for the throughput study that we're doing. What should we measure?
How do you want to measure this? Those are two perfectly good metric finding questions for you and your team.
But if you don't normally lead by asking questions, if you would normally walk in and tell them what we're going to measure, like a good doctor would. Lone Ranger, perfectionist, workaholic. Right. Top down doctor gives orders, we obey.
If you don't normally lead that way and you ask a question in good faith, you're excited. You're going to try out this new tool that maybe you learned from the podcast.
If that's not normally the way that you lead, you're likely to get no participation whatsoever. Crickets, nervous glances, giggles, maybe a tentative little answer, or maybe not. And there's three reasons why this happens. One is simple habit.
They aren't in the habit of having you question them. You lead top down. This is going to be a habit interrupt. They aren't going to know how to respond. Number two, a power imbalance.
Why are you asking us questions? You need to tell us what to do. You're in charge, right? And the last one is t word, five letters. The word is trust.
They may not trust that you're being serious. They may not trust that you'll take their input and use it appropriately.
There's just a low trust environment in that first few times through using questions to lead your team. Now, the most important of these three is trust.
Trust is the rocket fuel of team engagement and of your servant leadership style and a supportive culture in the workplace. A high trust environment is rare, especially in healthcare, and incredibly powerful.
And you build trust by being truthful, open, honest and transparent in your communications. When you ask a question, you want them to participate at 100% and know that by volunteering their idea, they are not being vulnerable.
They're participating to the quality of the outcome you produce together.
So one of the crusades that I'm on is I love Brene Brown, but I don't like the idea that simply being truthful, open, honest and transparent in the workplace is something that makes you vulnerable, potentially in danger because you chose to tell the truth. I believe it's our job as leaders to make open, honest, truthful and transparent communication the norm in the workplace.
So if you're doing any of those things, you don't feel vulnerable and your contribution is accepted with open arms. And I want you to know all these things.
Habit, power, imbalance and trust improve every time you ask a question to your team and welcome and encourage their full participation. So the key is don't expect them to jump in right away the first time.
And don't stop leading by asking questions, because every question that you ask will increase their trust that this is a new reality rather than flavor of the month.
Now, in the next episode, what I'm going to show you is how to really put some power behind the trust in your workplace to build it up very quickly using a special ratio that comes from the relationship psychology industry. It's going to be really fun. I think you're going to enjoy it and learn a lot from it.
Until then, keep asking those questions, beginning with what and how. Take your doctor hat off and all the best with your leadership adventures and your teams. I'll see you in the next podcast. Keep breathing.
Have a great rest of your day.
