"Don't ask what I would do. Ask what's best for the patient." – Amit Gir, MD

In this week's episode, Carol Schultz sits down with Amit Gir — physician, entrepreneur, and CEO of Phox Health — to dig into one of the most underrated leadership challenges: creating a culture where employees take real ownership, instead of waiting to be told what to do. Amit shares how he built a remote-first healthcare logistics company across 12 states and two continents, almost entirely by learning when to let go — and who to let run.

Amit explains why the best leaders learn every inch of the business before delegating it, how to tell the difference between micro-feedback and micromanagement, and why he has a strict rule of never taking credit for a good idea. They also get into the messier side of leadership — what happens when someone doesn't show ownership, how fear-based cultures quietly kill companies, and why giving employees "the rope" is the only way to find out who will climb and who won't. The episode closes with Amit's core belief: when the mission is bigger than the manager, ownership stops being a personality trait and starts becoming company culture.

Takeaways

1. Learn the business deeply before you hand it off — you can't manage what you don't understand.
2. Hire people who can teach you something, not just execute your ideas.
3. The best hires are the ones who eventually do the job better than you could.
4. Passing ownership means giving a rough playbook — then getting out of the way.
5. Never own a good idea. Only own the bad outcomes.
6. Micro-feedback is about speed, not control — the faster the feedback, the faster the growth.
7. Fear-based leadership creates silence, not performance.
8. When the mission drives decisions — not the founder — ownership becomes instinct.
9. A culture of feedback has to be modeled by the CEO first, every single day.
10. Remote teams can scale — but only when built with intention, not just cost savings.

Chapters

00:01 Intro: The real cost of employees who wait for permission

01:27 What Fox Health does and why it exists

02:22 From medical school to startup — Amit's founder origin story

05:20 What ownership actually looks like on Amit's team

08:35 The Atlanta hire — no resume, no healthcare background, full ownership

10:31 Giving employees the rope — risk, trust, and letting go

11:13 Why you should hire people who can replace you

12:24 The one instruction Amit gives every new hire

13:02 When ownership doesn't show up — and how to act fast

14:26 The credit rule: he never owns a good idea

15:06 Micro-feedback vs. micromanagement — where the line is

17:40 Leading by example when no one's watching

18:12 How to build a culture of feedback from the top down

19:21 Love vs. fear — which one actually builds better teams

22:08 Running a global remote team across the US, India, and Scotland

24:52 Gender dynamics in a global workforce

25:10 Why Fox Health ended up 50%+ female — by accident

28:46 Turning time zone gaps into a competitive advantage

32:35 Final thoughts: hire with purpose, not just for price

Connect With Host Carol Schultz

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