Servant leadership: I\u2019m concerned it\u2019s dead.\u00a0 It\u2019s been suffering a deep malignancy for years, and it seems to be reaching the terminal phase. \u00a0The profession of medicine is dying along with it, because of the indivisible link between the two.\u00a0 What happened?\u00a0 Greed? Arrogance? Apathy? A decline in responsibility and ownership?<\/p>\n
One possibility is that it was never alive to begin with, but merely an illusion. \u00a0I can\u2019t name one doctor or leader I\u2019ve met or been mentored by over the past 25 years I would like to be like.\u00a0 There are those who have attributes I admire, and those who have attributes that I share, but none who I aspire to be.\u00a0 Thus, I can only conclude that servant as physician and leader has always been and remains a rare anomaly.<\/p>\n
Another possibility is that there is no energy or time to acquire the knowledge and skills or for the reflective listening needed to expand the awareness required to be a servant as leader and physician.\u00a0 The lack of time has many contributing factors: the increasing complexity of practicing medicine, the immense breadth and depth of knowledge required, and the increasing amount of time required for EHR documentation, insurance-related administrative tasks, and various regulatory and licensing requirements.\u00a0 A more positive reason for the lack of time is the shift to valuing wellness and balance if not synergy in one\u2019s life, as well as the importance of being present with one\u2019s family if you\u2019ve decided to raise children.\u00a0 Thus, some things had to go and among them were taking the time to learn the skills and behaviors to be a servant physician leader, and executing them on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
A common root cause of both possibilities may be the lack of value individuals and society as a whole give to the concept of servant leadership or servant as physician.\u00a0\u00a0Today there are conflicting priorities.\u00a0One is forced to choose, often choosing with a natural self-centered bias.<\/p>\n
Physicians often complain about RVUs, work hours and compensation; many want to make more money then complain about the focus on\u00a0RVUs, which is how physicians get reimbursed.\u00a0 Almost universally money eventually wins in this generative tension.\u00a0What happens is that the physicians drive (perhaps unknowingly in some cases) an increasingly more efficient system designed to optimize revenue.\u00a0 The resulting culture is: if a physician isn\u2019t going to get paid for doing it, they won\u2019t do it as much, or as well, or even at all.\u00a0 Servant leadership often takes time and energy that has no RVUs attached to it.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have a cure, and it may already be dead. \u00a0I fear this lonely dream of servant as physician and leader will forever be securely stuck in the corners of my imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Servant leadership: I\u2019m concerned it\u2019s dead.\u00a0 It\u2019s been suffering a deep malignancy for years, and it seems to be reaching the terminal phase. \u00a0The profession of medicine is dying along with it, because of the indivisible link between the two.\u00a0 What happened?\u00a0 Greed? Arrogance? Apathy? A decline in responsibility and ownership? One possibility is that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}