Burnout Proof Leadership: Identify Shift and Leadership Skills for Midlife Women Entrepreneurs

Lou Holtz says, “In this world you are either growing or you’re dying, so get in motion and grow”.  

If you are like many leaders today, you feel the pressure to “be more” to improve your performance at work and at home.   

Do you want to up your game?  Maybe take your performance to the next level or possibly grow and evolve as a leader, parent, or partner or spouse?   

At the same time do you wonder when you’re going to get a break?  When you might find some time to breathe.  Or maybe you’re wondering when you can get off this train! 

In today’s episode we discuss personal and professional growth and the eustress and rest polarity. 

Achieving sustainable growth and optimal performance requires us to leverage eustress and rest.  Eustress is the good stress.  It’s the stress you feel when stepping outside your comfort zone or stretching yourself beyond your current capabilities.  

If you’re like most people who have embarked on a fitness or exercise routine you’ve probably experienced this. You periodically increase the stress on your muscles to increase their capacity and you balance it with periods of rest and recovery.  

Every two years we witness the positive outcomes of leveraging this polarity when we watch the athletes at the winter and summer Olympics compete. (As you will hear we were looking forward to seeing the Olympics when we recorded this segment- but it wasn’t meant to be this year due to COVID-19).  The athletes leverage this polarity daily, weekly, monthly, and annually to become champions in their sport.     

Leveraging eustress and rest can work for our mental or cognitive growth as well. 

Listen to this episode and learn how managing eustress and rest supports personal and professional growth.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

Today’s episode is based on over 30 years of experience that we have had working with healthcare organizations across North America. 

We’ve observed over the years that organizations have the same problems, concerns, culture, and practice issues. Within each organization these challenges appear to be unique to the organization but when you have a more global perspective you can see these challenges are pretty much the same in other healthcare organizations. 

Healthcare leaders enter what we call the “fix-it” mode and end up caught on the merry-go-round of competing priorities and numerous change initiatives.  Before one project ends, another begins.  

If you are like most of these leaders, you are juggling projects, revisiting the same issues over and over and unable to determine which of the many priorities are the priority! 

You may or may not realize you lack a sense of the big picture, how each initiative impacts the other, how essential voices are missing from the process, and why the positive outcomes that are achieved are not sustained. 

This is because the project or initiative driven change is not being supplemented with a systems or framework driven approach. 

We hope you’ll join us for this episode to learn how healthcare leaders can implement both project/initiative and framework/system changes to achieve sustainable outcomes.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

In today’s episode, we interview Darren J. Gold. Darren is the author of Master Your Code:  The Art, Wisdom, and Science of Leading an Extraordinary Life.

The book was based on a letter that Darren wrote to his son following his graduation from high school and prior to his transition to college.  The inspiration to shape the letter into a book came after receiving positive feedback from a few thousand people who read the letter because it had been forwarded to them from someone else.  

Darren’s hope in publishing the book was to synthesize and crystalize the wisdom he had accumulated over the years both professionally and personally and offer it to others in a practical way.  

“We can’t change what we can’t see”- Darren J. Gold 

Darren explains the premise of the book is that we are all programmed by subconscious safety- based rules, beliefs and values that drive our behaviors and limit our results, which is our subconscious code.  If we want to live an extraordinary life we can consciously choose to rewrite the program and master our code.

In the book, Darren explores the ten crux rules, values, and beliefs that are part of our program and have the most significant impact on our life.  One of the shifts in programming is to seek to understand rather than be right all the time.  The challenge is we are programmed to see all conflicts as a problem to be solved where there is only one right answer or solution, when many of the conflicts are polarities with two right  and interdependent answers.    

Darren described his exposure to Polarity Thinking™ as “a piece of wisdom or a wisdom tool that changed the way I saw the world, which doesn’t happen often, but when it does I know it instantly”.   From his perspective, you can’t truly master your code unless you can distinguish and internalize the difference between problems to solve and polarities that can be leveraged.  

In the interview, we discuss how looking at Challenging and Celebrating your employees as a problem can lead to a false choice that you are either challenging them to get the most out of them or celebrating them and not getting the most out of them!   In the book, Darren shares more about how he leveraged Polarity Thinking™ to integrate the tension between these poles into his leadership and how it enabled him to develop a deeper understanding of his preferences and fears. 

Darren wanted every page in the book to add something, and he knocked it out of the park! 

If you are a healthcare leader who realizes your beliefs, values, rules, and old ways of thinking are not working anymore, this book is for you.  You won’t be disappointed!  

You may or may not have already realized, Master Your Code:  The Art, Wisdom, and Science of Leading an Extraordinary Life is a gift full of insights and inspiration.     

We could tell you the same holds true for this interview, but we will let you discover that for yourself!

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

Introduction to the Episode: 

Dialogue lifts us out of polarization and into a greater common sense and is a means for accessing the intelligence and coordinated power of groups of people.-- William Issac 

We are thrilled to be talking about dialogue and how dialogue skills can help leaders reach new levels of understanding.    Dialogue is one of founding principles of our business and the cornerstone of who we are as healthcare leaders, business partners and best friends. 

During this episode we are going to share the principles of dialogue that have shaped our beliefs and communication behaviors over the past 30 years. We’ve taught these principles to thousands of clinicians and healthcare leaders who utilized them as the foundation for their healthy healing work cultures.   

You probably already know that effective communication is the cornerstone of leadership success.  Dialogue is an essential skill for every healthcare leader and that’s why it is one of the Living Principles in Pillar 1 of our Dynamic Balance Effect Framework.   

If you are like most leaders, as you listen to the podcast you’re going to discover very quickly the power of dialogue and how dialogue skills are an essential tool to overcome conflict, complaints, and resistance. 

During this episode, you’ll realize how leveraging dialogue skills can help you explore opposing points of view, fears, and reduce or eliminate resistance and conflict. 

Communication challenges and reoccurring problems are a source of stress that can weigh you down and hold you back from being a thriving, resilient, and effective leader.   

As you listen, you’ll discover why marrying the principles of dialogue and Polarity Thinking™ enables you to not only understand resistance but to leverage the wisdom resistance represents. 

If you are serious about being a thriving and effective leader, then this episode is exactly what you have been looking for. 

You can click here to listen.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

We begin our interview with our guest Dr. Jeanne Roode, talking about the influence Polarity Thinking™ has had on us as healthcare leaders and the polarities at play during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

As a healthcare leader amid COVID-19, Jeanne is recognizing the polarity of keeping people safe and rescuing the economy and how this is a polarity manifesting in front of us and on a world stage every day.  She’s also experiencing the margin and mission polarity as healthcare organizations face significant economic challenges and try to stay viable and at the same time serve their communities.

Jeanne sees Polarity Thinking™ as a way to give back, especially to new leaders and to help them navigate and manage the ongoing tensions they experience.

These tensions can significantly impact healthcare leaders, especially if they are unaware of them or do not know how to manage them.  

During our interview we discuss the crux tension or polarity of taking care of self andtaking care of others.  Jeanne shares her journey on the road to sustainable well-being over four years and what she has learned along the way.

From Jeanne’s perspective, 100% commitment to your well-being is not something you wake up one day and decide, it is an evolution.  She describes it as, “a number of moments in your life in which you learn and gain wisdom, that come together to one day be enough to push through the barriers”.

Jeanne’s doctoral work focused on the health and well-being of nurses and nurse managers.  She studied the self-care practices of nurses and found their lowest scoring areas were nutrition and exercise.  In her study, nurse managers had the lowest scores in stress management as well as attending to their own stress and learning more about it.  Jeanne has learned what nurses don’t understand, and that is if they don’t attend to their own self-care, and focus on others instead, they are putting everything at risk including attending to others.

Jeanne shares some of the ways she’s found to care for her team while caring for herself is to be a role model, provide appreciation and recognition of their stories, and take interest in their personal and professional success. 

Some recommendations for healthcare leaders engaged in day-to-day COVID-19 planning or management is to trust each other to carry the work, encourage self-care, and share stories of what you are doing to take care of yourself.   

How you take care of yourself as a leader cannot be hidden.  Your valuing of self-care shows in everything you do.  You are being watched and whether you are aware of it or not, you are a role model for self-care. 

The wisdom Jeanne shares is profound!

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

Today, we talk with Dr. Diana Hendel.  Diana is a pharmacist, healthcare executive, consultant, inspirational leader, and the author of Responsible:  A Memoir.   

Diana describes her book as a “story that demanded to be told”. 

During our interview, Diana shares her incredible journey as a CEO through a traumatic event and crisis at a California hospital where three colleagues lost their lives.   

Her motivation for writing the book was to pay tribute to the colleagues who lost their lives and to former co-workers, which she describes as her work family.  She also wrote the book to raise awareness of how trauma impacts individuals and organizational culture. 

Another motivation for writing the book was to raise awareness about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Diana shares in the book what it was like to be not only a leader with PTSD but also a patient with PTSD. 

Diana shares not only the essence of the memoir but also the discoveries and lessons learned from the trauma. She also shares what it was like to “Stand In” and take care of the organization and the employees following a crisis and how when trauma occurs in an organization it calls for a different type of leadership.  

We talk about the trauma healthcare leaders are experiencing because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the risks of PTSD.  Diana shares some recommendations leaders can implement to support each other.  

Responsible:  A Memoir is a gift full of insights and lessons that leaders can draw from as they move through the COVID-19 crisis.  Go here to pick up a copy. 

This is one of the most inspiring, informative, and enlightening interviews we have done.  

 Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

“Relationships are all there is”- Meg Wheatley 

Let’s face it, growing up many of us were not taught how to develop healthy relationships.  We learned about relationships and how to be in a relationship by observing others.   

We are thrilled to be talking about relationships during this milestone episode.  Relationships are the foundation of our business and the cornerstone of who we are as healthcare leaders, business partners and best friends. 

During this episode we are going to share the relationship principles that have shaped our beliefs and relationship behaviors over the past 30 years. We’ve taught these principles to thousands of clinicians and healthcare leaders who utilized them as the foundation for their healthy healing work cultures.  The principles are timeless and apply to any type of relationship. 

You probably already know that relationships are the corner stone of leadership success and an essential component of a healthy, joyful life. That’s why healthy relationships is one of the Living Principles in Pillar 1 of our Dynamic Balance Effect.    

Unhealthy relationships are a source of stress that can weigh you down and hold you back from being a thriving, balanced and resilient leader.   

If you are a leader who feels micromanaged, struggles to enlist the support of others, feels lonely at the top or doesn’t know how to improve your relationships, this episode is especially important for you.   

You may or may not have already realized the quality of your relationships begins with you.  If you haven’t been exposed to or learned how to engage in healthy relationships, this episode is a gift.

Listen and lead by example! 

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

All eyes of the nation have been focused on New York during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During this episode Dr. Vicky Tiase shares with us what it has been like to be a leader in one of the major NYC hospitals during the pandemic.  

Dr. Tiase shares her extreme gratitude for the support from nurses across the country who came to New York to help.   

We learn about the initial days of the pandemic and how overwhelming it felt, how hard it was to ramp up quickly and how the leadership teams worked diligently to keep staff informed and supported.  

Dr. Tiase also shares the lessons learned regarding communication and information sharing, converting an entire hospital into an ICU, and what it takes to prepare and support staff. 

As difficult as it has been there are many opportunities emerging from the pandemic and Dr. Tiase shares some opportunities she has identified within the context of the field of nursing informatics. 

Nationally leaders are voicing concern about the mental health of the frontline workers.  During the episode we discuss the importance of checking in with people, using open ended questions to invite individuals to share how they are really feeling and how “toughing it out” is only going to take someone so far. 

This is an inspiring and informative interview we know you will enjoy!

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

Three landmark reports from the National Academy of Medicine (previously known as the Institute of Medicine) had been guiding the transformation of the healthcare system for twenty years.

Now a fourth report, Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout:  A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being has been written to guide the healthcare system through the burnout crisis.

The cost of burnout is significant and is experienced at the individual, organizational and societal levels according to the NAM consensus report.

Chronic imbalances between job demands and job resources have contributed to burnout.

System changes and performance improvements will fall on the shoulders of leaders to solve the burnout problem.

If burnout is treated only as a problem to solve, without looking at the polarities that lie under the surface, the actions taken will over time result in failure.

The goal is to reduce burnout and improve well-being and resilience throughout the healthcare organization and the healthcare system.

Join us for this episode where we share how to apply and leverage Polarity Thinking™ to support well-being and resilience for both clinicians and healthcare leaders.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.

During this episode we interview our dear friend and colleague Dr. Barry Johnson, the father of Polarity Thinking™ about two crux polarities/tensions we are facing as a nation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The interview is based on two Op-Ed pieces that will be included in Barry’s new book, AND Making a difference by leveraging polarity, paradox, or dilemma- Volume One: Foundations which is to be released this month (June 2020).

The two polarities/tensions we discuss during the interview are Health And Economy and Individual Freedom And theCommon Good.  

These two polarities/tensions impact every person in the United States and therefore we urge you to listen to this episode and share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and communities. 

This interview can change how you think about these two tensions that we are experiencing daily in our communities and in the country.

We think it’s safe to say we all want a country with healthy people and a healthy economy and at the same time there is a fear that as the pandemic continues we will end up with more unhealthy people and further insult to a declining economy in our country.  

The truth is these polarities/tensions were present before the COVID-19 pandemic, and we must manage them now and after the pandemic.  

The question is, what can we learn now, during the pandemic, to help us manage them in future?

That is the purpose of this podcast, to help us learn to see these tensions through a new lens, explore why it is important to manage them, and identify how we can manage them better in the future.

A few considerations before listening:

If this is your first time listening to the podcast, you may find it helpful to listen to Episode #1 where we explain polarities before listening to this episode.  

The Op-Ed pieces are available in the show notes and if you are in a location where it is possible, we encourage you to download both pieces before you listen to the episode. Barry refers to the Polarity Map® in the Op-Ed pieces during the interview, so it will be helpful to have them in hand.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions.  We may use your question on a future episode.

NEW ANNOUNCEMENT!  We were so inspired by the response to our free webinar series that we created a NEW 5-Day Virtual Work Life Balance Bootcamp for Healthcare Leaders.  Registration doors are open!  The bootcamp begins June 8th!  Registration closes June 5th at 5pm EDST.  To learn more click here.

We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis.  To join Click here.

In this podcast, business leaders navigate the challenges of high-pressure jobs, tackling burnout, micromanagement, and decision fatigue while honing emotional intelligence, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities to strengthen their leadership identity. Through discussions on leadership development, stress management, conflict resolution, and time management, listeners gain insights into achieving work-life balance, overcoming the struggles of being overworked, and fostering personal growth in the ever-evolving workplace.