What Blows Up Will Come Down: Leadership Failures in Medical Practices

By Thomas A. Lerner | Related Practice: Health Care

This article originally appeared in the King County Medical Society Bulletin.

This article is not about Swedish Hospital, although the title may have led you to a different assumption. The facts, circumstances and consequences of events that have received extensive coverage in the Seattle Times are still playing out in real time, and will be left to unfold with limited commentary here. One need not look to Swedish Hospital for leadership lessons in medical practices and common threads that lead to the implosion of what should be
successful group endeavors.

Medical groups do not seek out lawyers for assistance in dividing up profits. Rather, those conversations begin because symptoms of discord have ripened into full blown infections. Colleagues have become suspicious or resentful of each other. Civil communication within the group has waned, or devolved into serial conversations in groups of two or three, behind closed doors. Perhaps a meeting is called of the whole group, and a quick glance around the table finds an empty seat or two, and others sitting with arms folded, as if seeming to hold in the anger or frustration that has been brewing.
Those seeking to right the ship look around, wondering “how did we get here?” One finds common threads that lead to these group dynamics. The witches at the cauldron of practice collapse are Complacency, Fear, and Avoidance.

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