Leadership is not just about guiding the work. It is about developing the people doing it. That distinction took me time to understand — and one question from a leader I respected changed how I have approached people ever since.
The Question That Changed My Approach
Over the years, leadership has changed how I approach the work we do in healthcare.
Yes, leadership is about guiding teams. But in healthcare, it is also about helping members move toward healthier outcomes, supporting providers, and keeping stakeholders aligned around work that has real impact. The more I have grown as a leader, the more I have realized that success is not only measured by what gets done. It is also shaped by how people are supported, trusted, and understood along the way.
Early in my leadership journey, I thought being effective meant doing more myself.
If something needed to be finished, I would finish it. If the team was stretched, I would absorb the extra work. If a task felt easier for me to complete than explain, I would simply take it on. At the time, I thought that made me dependable. I thought it showed commitment.
One evening, I logged back in from home after hours to finish a few things. My leader noticed I was online late. The next day, she asked me a question that stayed with me:
How can your team grow if you don't give them the opportunity to stretch?
That question shifted something for me.
I had been thinking about leadership through the lens of responsibility. She challenged me to think about it through the lens of development. In trying to protect the work, I was unintentionally limiting the people doing the work. I was solving for completion, but not always creating space for growth.
That was an important lesson.
Leadership is not just about stepping in. Sometimes leadership is knowing when to step back far enough for someone else to build confidence, try a different approach, and strengthen their own judgment.
When Doing More Becomes Taking Space
There is a point where doing more does not always serve the team.
It may help the task get done faster in the moment, but it can also keep others from building the skill, ownership, and confidence they need for the next moment.
That does not mean leaders should disappear. It means we have to be thoughtful about when to guide, when to coach, when to support, and when to create room for people to stretch.
For me, that was a defining shift. When people ask me what type of leader I am, I often say mentor. It is the leadership approach that feels most aligned with who I am and how I believe people grow. I care about outcomes, but I also care deeply about whether people are learning, developing, and gaining confidence in the process.
Creating space for autonomy matters.
Trusting different approaches matters.
Allowing people to grow in their own way matters.
And over time, I have seen that this kind of leadership does not weaken performance. It strengthens it.
People Want to Be Seen, Not Just Managed
One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that outcomes improve when people feel seen, not just managed.
That applies to teams in any industry. In healthcare, it shows up in ways that are particularly layered.
Members are not just data points or gaps to be closed. They are people navigating schedules, transportation, trust, access, family responsibilities, health literacy, fear, fatigue, and lived experience.
Providers are also navigating their own realities. They are balancing clinical judgment, administrative demands, patient needs, quality expectations, documentation requirements, and time constraints.
Stakeholders are trying to stay aligned while priorities shift, measures evolve, and the pressure to improve outcomes remains constant.
When leadership shifts from managing to understanding, the work changes.
We ask better questions. We build better solutions. We stop assuming that resistance always means unwillingness.
Sometimes what looks like disengagement is really confusion, fatigue, mistrust, competing priorities, or a system that was not designed around the person expected to move through it.
That is why seeing people matters.
Outcomes improve when people feel seen, not just managed.
From Oversight to Partnership
Leadership continues to refine how I define success.
Earlier in my career, I may have viewed success as making sure the work was completed, the expectations were met, and the team stayed on track. Those things still matter. But now I understand that leadership is also about creating the conditions for people to contribute well.
It is not control. It is connection. It is not simply oversight. It is partnership.
It is knowing when to direct and when to develop. When to solve and when to coach. When to hold the standard and when to understand the person standing in front of it.
That lesson has stayed with me because it applies to so much of the work we do in healthcare. Whether we are leading teams, supporting providers, engaging members, or aligning stakeholders, people do better when they feel understood.
And sometimes, the most important leadership shift is not learning how to manage more. It is learning how to see more.