OK – it's time for another edition of VITAL Physician Executive's Monthly Leadership Favorites. In this feature I share inspiring and enlightening advice from respected leaders, generally outside of the healthcare field.

This month's favorites follow…

February Favorites

Check out “How to Take Responsiblity After Making a Major Mistake.”

Michael Hyatt gives an excellent 4-step process for acknowledging a mistake and making it right. The ability to take ownership of a mistake is the hallmark of a great leader. The inability to demonstrate this leve of accountability will hamper your ability to move upward in an organization.

See Skip Prichard's “Customer Experience Starts by Ignoring Your Customer.”

The author reminds us that the best approach to achieving high customer (patient) satisfaction is to focus on improving employee satisfaction. I think this is a good reminder for all of us that if our staff is not engaged and satisfied, it will be very difficult to create loyalty in our clients.

Here is Leadership Freak's “3 People to Throw Off the Team.

I remember discussing the importance of creating and sustaining a powerful team in our senior executive meetings. Our leadership coach would admonish us with simple advice like:

“Keep your “A” players, try to get your “B” players to become “A” players, and free up the “C” players to pursue other opportunities,” or

“If you were to go out and start a brand new company, would you really bring all of your current team members along? If not, you need to think about moving some of them off the team.”

I think that Dan Rockwell, the Leadership Freak has some really sound advice in the post I am highlighting this week. He describes three types of “C” players that need to go, and why they can be so destructive to any team.

Here is another gem from Dan Rockwell: “4 Ways to Lead Action-Taking Meetings.

He reminds us that meetings should rarely be held simply to share information. And he gives some sound advice about how to make your meetings more “action-taking.”

Finally, here is an entertaining video rant by ZDoggMD (aka Zubin Damania, MD): Antivaccine Cleveland Clinic Doctor Just Made Our Jobs So Much Harder

You might not agree with all of ZDoggMD's points, but he certainly makes them in an enthusiastic (and perhaps condescending) fashion. I think he represents the indignation that many of us feel when so-called experts make proclamations that go unchallenged. ZDoggMD definitely challenges them in this video.

In Closing

Those are the posts that I found worthwhile reading (and watching).

If you have any favorite blogs or podcasts addressing leadership and related topics (or humorous ones) please let me know. I am always looking for new sources of inspiration and wisdom.

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