The Most Effective Leadership Tool in Medicine Isn’t What We Think
In physician leadership, we’re trained to lead with logic.
Analyze. Evaluate. Decide. Act.
We’re praised for decisive thinking, efficiency, and evidence-based decisions. And those tools matter.
But in the hardest moments of my life, career, and leadership, logic alone didn’t bring me clarity.
Ten years ago, as a practicing pediatrician and physician leader, my personal life began to fall apart. My husband—who had always been steady and supportive—began to slide into severe depression.
I tried to manage the crisis the only way I knew how: with effort, control, and more thinking.
I read endlessly. I problem-solved compulsively. I stayed strong.
It didn’t help.
If anything, it kept me stuck.
Several years in, I took an emergency leave from work. Physicians rarely stop unless things are truly a disaster.
Only then did I slow down enough to listen to something deeper.
In a yoga class, I placed my hand on my heart, closed my eyes, and breathed. A new question emerged—one I had never asked in all my years of training, parenting, or practice:
What would love do?
That question changed everything.
It didn’t make things easier. But it made things clearer.
At first, I asked it in my personal life. Eventually, I brought it into my professional one. And now I ask it as a physician leader and coach, every single day.
“Love” may sound like an unlikely leadership tool in healthcare. We avoid the word because it can be mistaken for sentimentality or softness.
But I’ve come to understand love as a strong, grounded force:
it connects
it clarifies
it tells the truth with courage and compassion
Love, in this context, isn’t the opposite of logic. It’s what gives logic direction and depth.
When we ask, “What would love do?” we make better decisions—for patients, for teams, and for ourselves. We stop reacting out of fear and start responding with wisdom.
I’ve seen this question shift lives and systems. Leaders who stopped managing and started connecting. Programs that finally gained support—not through force or data alone, but because someone brought a different quality into the room.
And love doesn’t mean saying yes to everything. It doesn’t mean overgiving or self-sacrifice.
It means leading with honesty, boundaries, and a commitment to do no harm—including to ourselves.
This question changed my life so profoundly that I recently gave a TED talk about it. Not because it’s a nice idea, but because it works—across specialties, settings, and situations.
The next time you feel overwhelmed by decisions—clinical, administrative, or personal—pause.
Place your hand on your heart. Close your eyes. Take a breath.
And ask: What would love do?
You might not like the answer. But it will be true.
And it may lead you somewhere far more human—and more healing—than logic alone ever could.
Nothing shared in this blog is medical advice.