Life is already stressful. What if your passion in life is to work in a complex system while trying to do something worthwhile? What if part of that journey calls you to be a leader of the teams and the system?
That takes bravery, love, leadership, creativity, teamwork and a variety of other strengths. I have a lot of respect for people who are willing to be leaders. As someone who has completed 20 years of school, 1 year of research, 4 years of Graduate Medical Education (aka residency), I have deep respect for leaders in the academic arena. Then I had good fortune of serving as an academic leader myself for a period of time.
Academic leaders navigate seas full of competing priorities, complex systems and real life people. People who will be caring for all of us down the road. That’s why I was so honored recently to collaborate with the Association for Academic Pathology’s Leadership Fellows Program. This is a collection of earnest, highly skilled professionals dedicated to taking care of their teams and their communities.
(and the APLF program is phenomenal! I wish I had something like this when I was a Program Director!)
Through my years working in primary care, I’ve come to understand through direct experience and close observation that work has the power to make us sick or to help us thrive. How that shows up in medicine, and many other fields, is people who are angry, burnt out, out of balance, quietly quitting or unplanned early retirements. None of us wants that.
I also realized two adjacent things, doctors are not trained to manage this process and business leaders are often unaware of this connection. Am I a doctor, or am I a healer? Am I a team member or am I a leader? I’ll let you answer those questions. Here’s what I realized, if I wanted people to feel better and to do great things, I was going to need a different set of skills. So I skilled up. And, as a former patient of mine described it, “Now, Doctor, your practice has been expanded.“
This picture is from our first session together, where we explored our Character Strengths. It was even more fun than I thought it would be. More than that, though, learning to use your Character Strengths will change your life. Teams that become strengths-focused have better outcomes, more engagement and more thriving (more efficient, make more money and take care of each other). We had other sessions where we talked about career longevity (avoiding burnout) and some skill building.
Most importantly, we uplifted and encouraged each other while we did this important work.
You can do great at your job and be true to yourself. That will let you take care of your family and show up for your community.
After all, we are on this journey together.
Better together,
-Dr. Joe
PS Are you interested in doing great at work while being true to yourself? Sign up for a coaching journey with me. Are you a team leader who advocates for your team while pursuing lofty goals? Sign your leadership team up for a leadership journey with me, or transform your organization into a Workplace at its Best with me as your guide.
Blog posted 13 Aug 2026, Conference July 2026
