Practicing Independence
Chapter 4
Leadership & People
Clarify authority and build a team that stays
90 minutes with your leadership team
In most independent practices the constraint is not talent. It is clarity. When authority is undefined, every decision routes back to the busiest physician in the building and the practice moves at the speed of that one calendar.
This chapter separates ownership from management, names the decisions that belong to each role, and builds the conditions that make good people stay.
Principles
- Respect for people is a management system, not a sentiment
- Every recurring decision has one owner
- Managers are trained, not simply promoted
- Feedback is scheduled, specific, and two-way
- Turnover is a symptom; find the process that caused it
Ownership versus management
Owning the practice does not mean managing every function of it. Write down which decisions truly require the owner and delegate the rest with a clear boundary.