Plenty of capable people learn to lead by copying whoever's already in charge. It works for a while, right up until it leaves you running on someone else's fuel and still not quite yourself.

Ruth Andermatt is a Canadian self-leadership coach who has spent more than two decades working with executives and emerging leaders, most of them introverts. She was often the only woman in the room, and she has thought hard about what it costs to keep conforming to a style that was never going to fit.

If you're in a non-titled role wishing you had more influence, or eyeing a step into management because it looks like the only way to have impact, this conversation is for you. Ruth draws a clean line between managing people and leading them, and she begins where most leadership advice skips ahead: how you lead yourself. Expect plenty on holding your ground without conforming, guiding the people above you, and what to do when the version of success you've been chasing quietly stops fitting.

• Why conforming to get into leadership tends to run out of road
• The difference between managing people and actually leading them
• Leading the people above you, not only the ones who report to you
• What self-leadership asks of you long before any title arrives
• The cost of staying in survival mode and calling it dedication

Timestamps

01:15 Being the only woman in the room and the pull to conform

05:45 Masculine and feminine leadership, and why most workplaces pick one

08:48 The exhaustion of dancing to someone else's tune just to get hired

13:40 Why a title doesn't make you a leader, and what self-leadership actually means

16:44 Hitting a plateau and shifting your perspective instead of walking away

29:05 The blind spot that holds capable people back, women especially

33:08 Leading the people above you, not just the ones who report to you

41:25 Survival worn as a badge of honour, and the price every choice carries

45:09 Untangling your identity from how you got here and redefining success

55:48 Outgrowing your manager and repositioning without burning the bridge

Ruth Andermatt is a self-leadership coach and consultant and the founder of Andermatt Consulting Experience (A.C.E. Inc) in Canada. A former national-level paddler and UBC graduate, she has coached executives, business owners and emerging leaders for more than twenty years, with a particular focus on women and introverts who lead quietly but effectively. Her view, useful for anyone in a hierarchical field like healthcare, is that leading yourself is the foundation everything else is built on, title or no title.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachruth/
• Website: https://andermattconsulting.com

Career Cliniq Resources

If this conversation has you wondering where your influence and interests actually sit, the StreamAhead Assessment maps your experience across the full spectrum of healthcare work, not just the path you trained for: https://careercliniq.com/streamahead

Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn or Instagram

Bree Murray has never seen a patient. She'll still put "dietitian" on every form she fills in.

She's spent 15 years in professional associations, food industry, health profession regulation, and a job-shared CEO role and has never once questioned whether that makes her a real dietitian. This conversation is for anyone who has.

• Building a dietitian career entirely outside clinical practice
• What personal life seasons reveal about what you actually value
• How a project officer becomes a job-sharing CEO
• The real cost of a portfolio career when you've come from a for-purpose background
• The difference between a career compass and a career plan

Bree Murray is an Australian dietitian with over 15 years of experience spanning professional association work, food industry consulting, health profession regulation, and executive leadership. She currently serves as executive officer for a Council of Deans of Nutrition and Dietetics, supports governance work with self-regulating health professions, and sits on the National Alliance of Self-Regulating Health Professions board. Her career has been built through relationships, referrals, and a consistent willingness to move into unfamiliar territory when the fit is right.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bree-murray-44193528/

If this conversation got you thinking about what's actually guiding your career decisions, the StreamAhead Assessment maps your interests and experience across the full spectrum of healthcare work - not just the path you trained for. 👉 Take the StreamAhead Assessment

What's the moment you realised the shape of your days didn't match what you actually cared about? I'd love to hear it. LinkedIn | Instagram

You're halfway through a degree or deep into a career you're not sure you'll stay in and the loudest fear isn't about what's next. It's that everything you've already invested might be wasted. Keagen Hadley finished an entire OT doctorate he wasn't sure he'd use and it was the very thing that gave him room to build a completely different career.

Keagen Hadley is a regulatory medical writer for a large biotech company. He holds a doctorate in occupational therapy and has spent over a decade in the biotech and pharmaceutical space.

We Explore

• How geographic limitation can become a catalyst for unconventional experience
• Why the financial variable in career decisions deserves more honesty in the helping professions
• How your cognitive wiring reveals itself early and what to do when it doesn't match the clinical path
• Why "regulatory medical writer" misrepresents the actual work of the role
• How credibility gets built in an industry where your healthcare credential doesn't automatically count

Chapters

00:00 Meet Keagen Hadley - regulatory medical writer and OT

03:22 How a small-town CRO in North Dakota opened the door to biotech

08:50 $96K in student loans and the decision to finish anyway

14:14 The lecture that reframed scale and patient impact

19:25 Remote work, flexibility, and family life in biotech

24:48 Starting before you feel ready and selling yourself as a novice

35:56 Why recruiters matter more than applications in this field

45:10 Wrangling physicians who disagree

47:28 AI and regulatory writing

57:25 Why clinicians won't say the money part out loud

Connect with Keagen

• LinkedIn: Keagen Hadley
• Newsletter:  https://cliniciansguide.substack.com/
• What Regulatory Writers Actually Make - https://thecliniciansguide.myflodesk.com/uegisjcpq9
• 6-Month Roadmap to Becoming a Regulatory Medical Writer - https://thecliniciansguide.myflodesk.com/nx48w16db8

Career Cliniq Resources

If you're trying to get clearer on what actually drives your next step, the StreamAhead Assessment will map your interests within healthcare.

👉 Take the StreamAhead Assessment

Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Most health professionals spend years building toward a role they're told is the destination. What happens when you get there and realise you're still evolving?

Kristen Hicks-Roof is a registered dietitian and PhD researcher who built a full academic career - tenure, grants, research agendas, and chose to leave it to lead human nutrition at the US National Pork Board, a role that didn't exist before she took it.

This conversation gets into what it's like to be a high performer navigating competitive dynamics, the identity reckoning that happens when your career and your motherhood collide on the same timeline, and what it actually looks like to take clinical skills into an industry most dietitians are taught to distrust. If you've ever felt like you outgrew a role you genuinely valued, or wondered whether the skills you built in practice could belong somewhere completely different, this one will sit with you.

• The fight to prove nutrition's value and why it follows you no matter what setting you're in
• What happens when your drive and the culture around you aren't well matched
• The identity shift from "mother scholar" to something with no established name
• How a 2am LinkedIn scroll during maternity leave became a career turning point
• What dietitians and clinicians misunderstand about working in the food industry

Chapters

• 00:00 Unexpected Career Paths
• 06:31 The Role of Nutrition Professionals
• 17:08 Academia and Career Transition
• 28:26 The Decision to Leave Academia
• 34:01 Navigating Tension in Academia
• 42:46 The Impact of Motherhood on Career
• 49:29 Role in Nutrition Research
• 59:12 Building Connections and Following Passions

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD is the Director of Human Nutrition at the US National Pork Board, where she oversees research investment and science communication across stakeholder groups from farmers to federal policymakers. A former associate professor with promotion and tenure, her academic research focused on integrating nutrition across healthcare teams and the lived experience of mother scholars in academia. She also hosts the Nutrition Connection podcast.

• LinkedIn: Kristen Hicks-Roof
• Podcast: Nutrition Connection

Wondering where your clinical skills could actually take you? The StreamAhead Assessment helps you map what you've built and where it could go next. 👉 Take the StreamAhead Assessment

Have you ever been in a role where your drive worked against you? Tell us about it. Find us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Emily Kelly chose physical therapy because a torn ACL at 14 showed her what one-on-one care could do. She found her dream clinic, treated patients for an hour each, and loved the work. Then a new grad started questioning what she believed about pain, and the clinical identity she had spent years building started to come apart.

Emily is now a product manager at Prompt, a health tech company building software for rehabilitation providers in the US.

This conversation covers what it actually took to get from one to the other. A pay structure that punished the qualification it demanded. The emotional cost of being the clinician who takes everything home. A healthcare innovation conference that lit something up. And a series of deliberate, unglamorous decisions that most career transition stories skip over entirely. If you are a health professional who knows something needs to shift but cannot see the steps from where you are, this episode lays them out honestly.

We explore:

• What pain science does to a clinician's sense of who they are in the room
• The emotional cost of clinical empathy that no one talks about at university
• A pay structure that punishes the qualification it demands
• What hiring managers actually notice when a clinician interviews for a non-clinical role
• The unglamorous middle of moving from physical therapy to health tech product management

About Emily Kelly

Emily Kelly is a physical therapist and product manager at Prompt, a health tech company building practice management software for rehabilitation providers. Based in Denver, Colorado, she spent eight years in outpatient physical therapy before moving through customer success and leadership into product.

• LinkedIn: Emily Kelly
• Mentioned: Meredith Caston / The Non-Clinical PT, Lorimer Moseley (pain science researcher), Peter O'Sullivan, Adriaan Louw

Career Cliniq Resources

If this episode has you wondering where else your clinical expertise could take you, the StreamAhead Assessment maps your interests across eight healthcare work streams and shows you options you might not have considered yet.

Take StreamAhead HERE!

Connect with Ruth

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drruthvo/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drruthvo/

The boxes we're handed in healthcare are well-meaning. Your title, your scope, your place in the hierarchy - they exist for good reasons. But they can also become the edges of what you think is possible.

Melissa Gunstone is a Canadian Registered Kinesiologist who graduated, hit the wall most new grads hit, and built her way out of it - not by leaving healthcare, but by refusing to stay inside the box it handed her. What followed is a ground-level account of private practice niching, a team to lead, and a product invented because it didn't exist.

If you're a health professional navigating the gap between your training and what's actually possible - this conversation covers territory your degree never did.

We Explore

• The gap between your credential and what the world does with it
• Why your professional title can work against you
• What more schooling won't give you
• Operating on the periphery of the healthcare system
• Finding your real market by listening, not assuming
• The cost of building a team when you're the only one who cares as much as you do
• Whether your business success can open doors for others in your profession
• How entrepreneurship can arrive before you're ready for the word

About Melissa Gunstone

Melissa Gunstone is a registered kinesiologist based in Ontario, Canada. She is the founder of Home Stretch (in-home kinesiology for seniors) and creator of Sturdey Fall Prevention Tools. She also employs and mentors kinesiologists through her business - making career development as much a part of her mission as client care.

Connect with Melissa

Home Stretch - In-Home Kinesiology for Seniors: https://www.homestretch4seniors.ca

Sturdey Fall Prevention Tools: https://sturdey.com/collections/tools-to-stay-sturdy YouTube - The Fall Prevention Coach: https://youtube.com/@melissathefallpreventioncoach Melissa's marketing guy, Miles at Wondering Concierge: https://wonderingconcierge.com/

Career Cliniq Resources

Wondering which direction your healthcare career could take? The StreamAhead Assessment helps you identify which work streams align with your strengths right now.

👉 https://careercliniq.com/streamahead

When someone says "you need to network," what's your gut reaction? If it's dread mixed with a side of ick, Kaylee Johnson gets it. She's an occupational therapist who's worked across clinical care, health tech, and leadership roles in the US, and we sat down to unpack what networking actually looks like when you're an introvert who'd rather do anything else. We also had some fun comparing Australian and US takes on networking.

This conversation cuts through the schmoozing stereotype to explore networking as something more human: leading with curiosity, asking questions because you genuinely want to know, and figuring out how you can help someone solve a problem. Kaylee shares how she flopped hard in early attempts but eventually landed roles through authentic connections and why LinkedIn doesn't have to feel like performing.

If you've been avoiding networking because it feels transactional, or you're job hunting but worried about word getting back to your current workplace, this episode offers practical reframes and the courage you'll need to step outside your healthcare bubble.

We Explore

• Why networking conversations feel transactional and how to reframe them
• The courage required to network outside your professional comfort zone
• Cultural differences in networking expectations between Australia and the US
• Strategic use of LinkedIn without the performance anxiety
• How to de-risk job search networking when you're worried about your current employer finding out
• How networking plays a role in preventing career and performance stagnation

About Kaylee Johnson

Kaylee Johnson is an Occupational Therapist with 15 years of experience across clinical practice, health tech, and leadership roles in the northeast United States. As a self-described introvert, Kaylee has navigated multiple career transitions and now brings insights about authentic networking, cross-functional collaboration, and career evolution for healthcare professionals who want to explore beyond traditional clinical pathways.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaylee-m-johnson/

Career Cliniq Resources

If this conversation has you thinking about what else might be possible in your healthcare career, the StreamAhead Assessment can help you identify which work streams align with your current interests and strengths. Sometimes clarity starts with simply knowing what's out there.

Access the StreamAhead Assessment: https://careercliniq.com/streamahead

What's your biggest networking challenge right now? Drop me a message and let me know.

Connect with me:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drruthvo/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drruthvo/

What becomes possible when you stop waiting to feel ready enough?

Dr Anum Ali's undergraduate transcript didn't predict where she'd land. After six years as a crisis counsellor, she doubted graduate schools would take a chance on her, until a mentor told her that her GPA didn't tell her whole story. An adult ADHD diagnosis during her master's reframed years of academic struggle as a brain that works differently, and she built a career that uses how she thinks rather than fighting it: VP of Clinical at a health tech startup, university professor, clinical supervisor, private practice therapist, and founder of a youth mental health non-profit. Her PhD research on South Asian parents and digital wellness grew out of her own childhood experience of online bullying.

We Explore

• Navigating healthcare as an immigrant and first-generation student
• What happens when a mentor sees beyond your transcript
• Getting an adult ADHD diagnosis and rebuilding your career narrative
• Saying yes and walking into rooms where you're not sure you belong
• Turning painful experiences into meaningful research
• Protecting your compassion when burnout threatens to erode it

About Dr Anum Ali

Dr Anum Ali is a licensed professional counsellor and clinical mental health researcher working across several healthcare sectors at once: VP of Clinical at a digital wellness startup building AI-powered parental guidance tools, a master's-level counselling educator and clinical supervisor, and a private practitioner specialising in culturally responsive therapy for South Asian communities. She founded DigiWell Foundation, a Texas non-profit focused on youth mental health and digital wellbeing, and her PhD examined how South Asian parents navigate adolescent social media use and mental health stigma. She's the first woman from her village in Pakistan to earn a PhD.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alianumtx/
• DigiWell Foundation: https://www.digiwellfoundation.org/
• TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfsNvFt--iI

Ready to explore what else might be possible? The StreamAhead Assessment helps you see which work streams align with how you actually work best.

What room are you not walking into because you're waiting to feel like you belong there?
Find me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Dr Kat Sylvester has built her whole career on a refusal: she won't accept that nothing more can be done.

A physical therapist working across neurological rehabilitation and women's health, Kat founded Operation Mist, a maternal health monitoring program that puts data directly in women's hands, and a mentorship program that has supported over 170 PT students.

This is for any health professional who can see what their patients need but keeps hitting what the system allows. Kat is open about how she changed hospital neuro care simply by asking for what patients needed, how scar massage opened the door to postpartum recovery, and why she walked away from a job she loved to build something that fit both her clinical values and her life as a mum. This isn't a work-life balance story. It's about building a career around the change you want to see, even when no one else is doing it yet.

We Explore

• Asking for what doesn't exist yet in your workplace
• Spotting the gap between what the system allows and what patients need
• Testing whether your idea has legs before you leave job security
• The moment loving your role isn't enough to keep you there
• Building a practice that puts knowledge in clients' hands instead of keeping them dependent

About

Dr. Katherine Sylvester is a physical therapist specialising in neurological rehabilitation and women's health. She founded Operation Mist, a maternal health monitoring program that uses wearable technology to catch postpartum complications before they become life-threatening. Kat also created a minority mentorship program that has supported over 170 physical therapy students through graduation, and teaches scar physiology and women's health to PT students and professionals across the United States. She maintains a private practice in Macon, Georgia, where she treats patients with neurological injuries and supports women through pregnancy and postpartum recovery.

Connect with Dr. Kat

• Website - Operation M.I.S.T - Mommy Monitor
• YouTube Video - How Mommy Monitor Works
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

Career Cliniq Resources

Ready to explore what's possible beyond your current clinical role? The StreamAhead Assessment helps health professionals identify which career pathways align with their interests and expertise right now. Sometimes the first step toward change is simply understanding what options exist.

Take the StreamAhead Assessment: https://careercliniq.com/streamahead

Connect with Ruth:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drruthvo/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drruthvo/

A physical therapist now shapes Medicare policy for one of the biggest healthcare companies in America. Dana Strauss will be the first to tell you she didn't plan it.

Dana started in acute care physiotherapy and now leads value-based care and Medicare policy strategy at a Fortune 6 company, a role usually filled by lawyers and public policy experts.

This is for any health professional who can't stop noticing the things that don't make sense. Dana built a whole career out of that instinct, teaching herself what she needed, pitching ideas to leadership, and following each problem to the next. She's honest about the parts that don't make the highlight reel too, the LinkedIn messages that scared her, the mentors who took a chance, the startup that nearly broke her, and the moment she realised policy work was what she'd been doing on the side of her desk for years. If you've ever sensed there's more you could do without a prescriptive plan or the usual credentials, this one is for you.

• Letting what doesn't make sense become your career compass
• Pitching yourself into a role that doesn't exist yet
• How cross-functional committees put you in front of people who'll vouch for you
• Sending the message that scares you
• Working with a brain that needs constant intellectual stimulation

About Dana Strauss

Dana Strauss is a senior policy expert at a Fortune 6 company, leading value-based care and Medicare policy strategy for its healthcare delivery division. She started as an acute care physical therapist and built her career by solving problems others accepted as unchangeable. Her work spans alternative payment models, skilled nursing facility management, and population health, bringing a clinician's perspective to the policy that shapes how care is delivered across America.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastraussdpt/
Newsletter: https://www.timelessautonomy.com/subscribe

Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@FutureProofPT

Career Cliniq Resources

Wondering how your clinical expertise could translate into a different role? The StreamAhead Assessment helps you identify your value and see what might make sense for your next move.

What's something in your workplace that just doesn't make sense to you?
Find me on LinkedIn or Instagram.