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

We are so happy to have our friend and colleague Dr. Katie Eliot on the podcast today.  Dr. Eliot is a dietitian nutritionist. 

While the burnout crisis is nationwide and impacts all health professions most of the evidence reported in the literature is focused on physicians and nurses.

In this episode with Katie we discuss clinician burnout from the dietitian nutritionist perspective.  

Katie sheds some light on some of the unique causes of stress and burnout for dietitian nutritionists and for students just entering the profession.

We also discuss clinician burnout from an interprofessional perspective which is Katie’s “jam”.

Click here to check out our NEW Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community Facebook Group!  This is a private community for healthcare leaders who want to trade burnout for resilience and balance.

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.

It’s an important time to have the conversation in the healthcare environment about the reality of the healthcare leader given the national call to address clinician burnout.

Leaders are you struggling to manage your workload, prioritize all the competing demands and find time for your family?  Do you feel responsible for helping the staff but at the same time wonder how much more you can take?

In this episode we talk about healthcare leaders taking care of themselves in order to support and care for their staff.

If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to help your staff and if you are not already, you may burnout in the long run.  

You are equally important. You matter. Sacrificing your well-being for the staff isn’t going to help them in the long run.  You will not be able to support them, if you are burnt out.

Healthy, thriving organizations start with the individuals who work in them, both leaders and staff. 

Taking care of you first can result in you becoming resilient, having a positive sense of well-being, with more energy and enhanced productivity. Taking care of you is an opportunity to learn what it takes, to walk the talk and to role model those behaviors for your staff and your peers.  It is difficult to lead others, especially if you have not been on the journey yourself.

Begin your journey by listening to this episode and carefully consider how you can take care of you first and become a thriving, resilient leader.

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.

Is there anyone who is not trying to manage the tension between WORK and HOME? 

Do you feel the tension between focusing on your work and paying attention to what’s happening at home?   

We spend most of our waking time at work rather than home!  This tension between the two is NOT going away! 

We highly value both aspects of our lives, that’s why the tension can seem so daunting or challenging  

In today’s podcast we discuss the Work and Home Polarity.  This is a key polarity especially given the significant struggles with burnout that healthcare leaders and clinicians are experiencing today.  As a leader, if you want to make a difference and enjoy life this is an essential polarity to manage. 

Who you are is impacted by both work and home.  You don’t walk out the door and leave it all behind, you carry your experiences in both environments with you.   

Do you often feel like you are being forced to make a choice?  To choose between work and home? 

Maybe you feel the stress of trying to get to a 50/50 balance between work and home. Or you attempt work-life integration and try to collapse them into one entity to manage it better.   

Work and Home is a polarity.  It’s not an either/or choice.   A 50/50 balance and work-life integration won’t work.  To manage it well you must leverage the tension and energy between these two values.

Listen as we talk about what this WORK and HOME polarity looks like and how to leverage it.

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 are so happy to have our friend and colleague Heather Graham on the podcast today.  Heather is a licensed clinical social worker and certified employee assistance professional. 

In our conversation with Heather we explore the system and individual polarity in the context of clinician burnout, well-being and resilience.  

There are numerous stressors impacting clinician burnout and well-being these days.  Recently there has been increases across the board in interpersonal and generalized stress.

Heather shares how an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and services can support employee well-being.  These services were developed because of the understanding that personal lives impact professional lives and professional lives impact personal lives. 

There are a variety of ways EAP can support both leaders and clinicians in managing the system and individual factors that impact burnout and well-being.  EAP services can provide opportunities to balance personal and professional well-being and at the same time maintain professional boundaries that support confidentiality for employees and leaders.

Heather says, “it [Polarity Thinking™] creates resilience, which is the ability to embrace the reality and work around and with it”. This is important “because healthcare organizations need to be resilient from the inside out and you can’t be resilient without the employees being resilient”.

It’s a two-way street.  Both the system and the individual clinician contribute. It’s not about owning the personal resilience of clinicians as a system and the clinicians can’t make the system responsible for their personal resilience either.

“You need to build resilience from the leadership down, employees up, from the inside out and outside in” says Heather.

Join us for this informative and thought provoking interview! 

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

If you are interested in being the first to know about our group coaching program for healthcare leaders join our early interest list by clicking 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.

 “Tell me what you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

If you are listening to our podcast, it’s more than likely that at some point in your career path you chose to serve in the healthcare field, and you may have also made the choice to be a leader.  If you did so, again it is more than likely that you made that choice because you wanted to contribute to something bigger than yourself.  

As a leader you may have felt, or you currently feel, the tension between making a difference and enjoying life.  

Sometimes you feel the tension in response to pressures/circumstances, external demands, leader/boss expectations, and sometimes it can be the fear of missing out.  

This tension is often persistent and it’s real!  The struggle can feel real too!

It’s real and persistent because making a difference and enjoying life is a polarity.  

If we aren’t aware of this, we may choose to believe we have to make a choice between the two, in other words we think we can either make a difference or enjoy life.  

But when we recognize this tension as a polarity, we know it’s a both/and situation, we can then choose to make a difference and enjoy life! 

Join us for this episode as we explore the Making a Difference and Enjoying Life Polarity and why it’s important to leverage this polarity and the unintended consequences if you don’t.

We also have not one, but two, FREE resources for you!  Listen all the way through to find out how to gain access to them.

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 are so excited to have Charlee Alexander from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) with us on the podcast today.

Charlee gave us a behind the scenes take on the NAM Action Collaborative and the work that began in 2017 to not only address clinician burnout but to shine a light on the issue, improve our understanding of the challenges, and accelerate evidence-based solutions.

The development of the Action Collaborative enabled multiple stakeholders to come together around a common purpose and develop a systems approach versus multiple isolated approaches across a variety of professions and professional organizations.  

Charlee and the Action Collaborative were wise to recognize that they did not have all the information, ideas, or answers and they needed others outside of the Collaborative to contribute.  This resulted in NAM pioneering the development of Networking Organizations as unique way for leaders and organizations to contribute to the collective effort (see the show notes for the link).

 The NAM Consensus Report -Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout:  A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being was released in October of 2019 and is considered as significant as previous IOM landmark reports such as To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm:  A New Health System for the 21st Century.

Charlee states “I hope the report kind of anchors us to the systems change that we need to undertake and provides a platform for us to kind of set aside our differences from our different stakeholder groups and to see what the massive charge is a head of us and to know we can only do that if we work together”.

Join us for this informative and enlightening interview.

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.

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence, it’s to act with yesterday’s logic”.  Peter Drucker

What logic are you using as a leader to address today’s challenges or to prepare for tomorrow? 

We are so excited to have Dr. Daniel Pesut with us on the podcast today to share his knowledge and expertise regarding healthcare and nursing leadership and the different models and ways of thinking that are essential for today’s and tomorrow’s leaders.  

Dr. Pesut encourages futures work at the personal, professional, organizational, and planetary levels.  He provides resources and direction for this body of work through the Katharine J. Densford International Center for Nursing Leadership at the University of Minnesota.   

Dr. Pesut notes “Things are changing so rapidly and there are so many disruptions you’ve got to be able to anticipate things.  You can anticipate hard trends.  We need to have requisite variety.  We can’t use the same things we have in the past because the dynamics, people, situations, stakes, and the metrics are different”.

Are you embracing new models and innovative ways of thinking as you navigate disruption and rapid change?  

During this interview we explore numerous models and ways of thinking that are essential competencies for future leaders.  

This interview is jam packed with pearls of leadership wisdom and inspiration, so be sure to join us!

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 are so excited to have Dr. Cathy Ivory on the podcast with us today.  She brings her expertise and knowledge in nursing practice, health informatics and research to the conversation around the technology and practice polarity in healthcare.                                  

We’re talking today about the strong tension between the domains of technology and practice and how often one is disregarded or more highly regarded than the other.  

“It is important to think about both [practice and technology] whenever we are making a decision about one or the other, that it is a yes/and, not an either/or” says Dr. Cathy Ivory.

Dr. Ivory shares her experience and perspectives on the healthcare technology journey, specifically related to the electronic health record, and what has informed and influenced our experiences to date.

We discuss change as well as change management and how we handle change as an influencing force in both practice and technology.

When design principles and governance are leveraged it enables the technology to support practice.  

Based on her experience Dr. Ivory says, “You can have practice and technology folks [on the governance team] but if they don’t have a little bit of understanding of the others perspective you won’t ever be able to come to a solution that is sustainable”.

Dr. Ivory shares a story of an interprofessional innovative fall risk approach as an example of leveraging technology to support practice.  

As an executive herself, Dr. Ivory shares how important it is for nurse executive leaders to understand baseline informatics competencies/principles and not abdicate the responsibility to be competent to make health IT related decisions.

Join us for this informative and thought-provoking interview.

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 are talking about Polarity Thinking™ as an essential leadership skill.

Let’s face it.  Leadership is not easy!  

All leaders can use tools and skills to enhance their effectiveness, change the conversations they’re having and transform their leadership style.

We are blessed to have Diane Hanson with us today.  Diane has leveraged polarities in her personal and professional life for over 20 years and has a lot of wisdom to share with us.

“Once you understand and believe in the logic and predictability of Polarity Thinking™ you are able to move toward sustainable outcomes” says Diane.

Diane shares many stories of how she’s leveraged polarities personally, professionally and as a community leader.  

Polarity Thinking™ has shaped Diane as a leader and broadened her ability to leverage diversity and help teams get to deeper understanding and agreement much sooner.

“When you lead teams, you have a greater opportunity for success when you incorporate Polarity Thinking™”  Diane Hanson

Diane believes a great place to start practicing your polarity thinking skills is with personal polarities or ones that are simple and meaningful to you.  Look at what’s showing up in your life through a polarity lens and then examine your perspectives, preferences and fears to gather deeper insights.   

Join us as we discuss with Diane how leaders can leverage polarities to strengthen their leadership skills, enhance teamwork, and cultivate psychological safety in the workplace.

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 are so excited to have Dr. Susan Hanrahan on the podcast with us today.

We’re talking today about preparing the future workforce for the 21st Century.

As Dr. Hanrahan pointed out, we are already in the 21st Century, so we are already behind!  That’s why these kinds of conversations are so important.

Dr. Susan Hanrahan shares some new ideas about higher education and what’s missing and what’s needed to prepare the future workforce.

She challenges the status quo and shares some fresh, progressive and thought-provoking ideas.

There are two basic tenets that Dr. Hanrahan has believed during her years in practice and academia.  The first is reimbursement (3rd party) drives practice, which impacts workforce needs, and the second is practice should drive education.

Healthcare market drivers and the reaction to those drivers in practice environments are significant but we also need to think about those factors in conjunction with what’s happening in health professions education to figure out what’s still missing to get clinicians practice ready.

This represents the interdependent relationship between interprofessional education and interprofessional collaborative practice.

Different higher order mental skills and cognitive capacities are needed to prepare the future workforce and advance the ability to be practice ready.

“We are operating and teaching at way too low a level for the real world” Susan Hanrahan, PhD.

Join us for this rich and inspiring interview exploring new types of education requirements, literacies and higher order mental skills that are needed to prepare the health professions workforce to be practice ready.

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.