You’re a healthcare professional. How can you develop your leadership skills?

This is the first place to start for any leader to grow. Self-awareness is critical to becoming an effective leader. You have to know how your attitudes and behaviors affect the people around you. Also, make sure you approach this and everything you do as a leader with a good dose of humility. It will go a long way to nurture trust and you're modeling the right behaviors.

Take time to reflect on what you excel at and where you could improve. For instance, if you're great at communicating with patients but struggle with time management, you might focus on improving your organizational skills. By understanding your strengths and weaknesses, you can create a targeted plan for growth. ? Example: Imagine you're playing on a sports team. You know you're really fast but sometimes have trouble passing the ball accurately. So, you practice passing drills to get better and become a more well-rounded player.

Not so commonly used, but I think this can be a good way to access your strengths and weaknesses - Narrative Reflection. This involves writing or storytelling about your experiences, focusing on specific cases or interactions. By these, you can gain deeper insights into your strengths, weaknesses, values, and emotions. You can explore how you handled challenging situations, what strategies you employed, and how you felt about the outcomes. This narrative approach allows for a more holistic and subjective exploration of one's professional identity and can uncover many insights. Additionally, sharing these narratives with trusted colleagues or mentors encourages valuable discussions and provides alternative growth perspectives.

The same way you would develop leadership skills in any other profession: read, talk with mentors, assess yourself, experiment, craft an empowering story, and be willing to let go of anything that distracts you from the new skill set.

Surround yourself with experienced leaders and mentors who can share their knowledge and insights. Observing how others handle challenges and lead teams can provide valuable lessons that you can apply to your own leadership style. ? Example: Think of a teacher you admire. You watch how they explain difficult concepts clearly and keep the class engaged. You learn from their techniques and start using similar methods when helping your classmates understand tricky subjects.

Healthcare professionals can learn from others by shadowing across disciplines. For example, a nurse could shadow a physical therapist or a pharmacist could shadow a social worker. This interdisciplinary shadowing provides unique insights into different approaches to patient care, communication strategies, and problem-solving techniques. By observing how professionals from diverse disciplines work together and complement each other's expertise, healthcare professionals can broaden their perspectives and enhance their own practice in unexpected ways.

Actively seek feedback from your colleagues, supervisors, and team members. Constructive criticism helps identify areas for growth and allows you to make necessary improvements. Continuously striving for improvement is key to becoming a better leader. ? Example: Imagine you're drawing a picture, and someone suggests adding more colors to make it more vibrant. You listen to their feedback, add the colors, and see how much better the picture looks.

Leadership often involves navigating challenges and adapting to changes in the healthcare landscape. Embrace these opportunities as chances to learn and grow. Overcoming obstacles can strengthen your leadership skills and resilience. ? Example: Picture yourself solving a puzzle. At first, it seems tricky, but as you keep trying different strategies, you eventually figure it out. Each challenge you tackle makes you better at solving puzzles in the future.

Effective leaders inspire their teams by setting a positive example, fostering a supportive environment, and empowering team members to take initiative. Encouraging others to reach their full potential contributes to a successful and cohesive healthcare team. ? Example: Think about a time when you encouraged a friend to try something new, like riding a bike without training wheels. You cheered them on, gave them tips, and celebrated their success when they finally rode on their own. In healthcare, inspiring and empowering others works similarly, helping everyone achieve their goals.

The AI generator got this one right ?? Sure, all of these headings are good, and will help improve one's leadership capacity. But putting on your own oxygen mask first is particularly helpful in healthcare. For starters, healthcare professionals are usually wired to serve, which is the reason they entered their field in the first place. But then, the demands of caring for another's wellbeing is a different kind of stress. When those are combined, burnout becomes a very real threat to anyone aspiring to grow and lead, and many good leaders can be derailed early. Practicing self-care, even if it's simply checking in with yourself regularly, will help you be your best and give your best to your team and patients.