Great Leadership -The Master Stroke To Thrive In Your Practice

“Everything in life rises and falls on leadership.”
– John C. Maxwell

Having interacted with end number of people including doctors led me to the conclusion of people having weak or incomplete definition in their mind and when the soil of foundation is not concrete enough – one cannot build a solid dependable structure on that. We, being in the medical profession have not learned much about leadership. However, it is also a fact that everything including my businesses and your practice rise and fall on leadership.

“Leadership is all about influencing, nothing more nothing less.”

To make this concept easier to understand, let me explain you few
more things:

1. When it comes to leadership, this influence is positive rather than negative.
2. Leadership is not about being number 1 (OPD wise or income wise) dermatologist of your area. (Even though this is the most perceived popular definition of leadership but this is not complete)
3. This influence is not confined only to your peers
4. This influence is in terms of your patients, your team-members, the medical representatives whom you meet to, your pharmacy, your vendors (laser machine vendors, medicine vendors, IT professionals etc.) and the people referring you patients (doctors, patients, friends, relatives, medical shop owners, paramedical people etc.).

In a nut shell – how much and how far positively you influence your surrounding plays a vital role in developing and establishing your practice.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
– John Quincy Adams

Now let us have a look at the things which can help you to inspire and influence people and which way you can inspire and influence all the people who matter most to you.

“A great reader may not be a great leader but all great leaders are great readers.”

The first and foremost tool which will help you to influence others and lead others is your knowledge and abundant knowledge will only come through consistently reading great books on diverse topics. The more number of people perceive you an accountable, reliable resource for their development and getting advice from you in the more diverse subjects and topics, the more your influence will be in their life. This is possible through becoming a serious reader on diverse topics so great leaders are great readers. They read great books not only on their academic subjects only but also on other subjects like sales, leadership, productivity, human psychology, time management etc. This helps you in becoming a leader by providing great values in various subjects to the people whom you get in touch with.

Leaders develop other leaders. One of the key factors of being a great leader is developing more leaders. While many people believe that it is all about developing more followers while the truth is – a great leadership is all about developing other leaders. That means it is significant how many other people’s lives you impact and for how many more people you become inspirations for them becoming a leader in their own small world. If we connect this to typical dermatology practice, to how many more dermatologists you are developing and becoming a role model, to how many more patients you are inspiring on various aspects including living their life comfortably with their chronic ailments, to how your staff members feel enlightened and feel joyful working with you, to how great care you take care of your people who refer you patients (please note this is not about monetary part), to what is your intention behind doing all these and sharing your knowledge with other people through conferences or workshops and articles – these all play a vital role in heading your leadership to a great height and as a result thriving in your practice.

The same theory of leadership applies in dealing with your different kind of vendors. How you are inspiring and impacting their lives in a positive manner determines – how they look at you, what type of deal they offer you – subsequently based on that how much you can thrive in your practice.

Even though leadership is a vast subject, having end numbers of books published on this single topic, I tried to give a brief idea about leadership and how it can help you in your practice. Feel free to write to me ([email protected]) if you would like to have some name of great books on leadership which would be of great help to become an amazing leader.

Which other topics you are thinking of exploring to extend your knowledge after reading this article?