Here’s a belief I’d like to challenge: “Great physicians naturally make great managers.”
Years ago, I read an article that has stuck with me. It asked why there are so few great nurse managers.
The answer wasn’t that nurses aren’t capable. It was that their training points somewhere else: think clinically, follow the protocol, follow orders.
I think something similar is true for physicians, in a different way.
Physicians are trained to look at clinical data and make decisions. Fast. Confidently. That’s exactly what you want in an exam room.
But it isn’t automatically how you lead a team.
Growing up in a physician’s household, I heard plenty about the old-school model of running a practice. It went roughly like this: “I’m up here. Everyone else is down there. I give the orders.”
To be fair, that isn’t most of the physicians I meet today. And the successful ones communicate beautifully with their patients: lots of listening, lots of back and forth.
The gap is often with their staff. Less asking. More telling.
And when the people running your front desk, your billing and your schedule don’t feel heard, you don’t just get frustration. You get turnover. Mistakes nobody flags. Problems that reach you late.
Great clinician. Not yet a great business.
None of this is taught in medical school. And the strengths that pull someone toward medicine aren’t always the ones that make a great manager.
The good news: management is learnable. Just like a procedure.
How does your team know you’re listening to them, not just directing them?
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