As 2025 comes to a close, we reflect on the transformative conversations that shaped healthcare leadership this year. From finding courage in uncertainty to leading with empathy in high-stakes environments, these moments reveal what it truly means to flourish. Healthcare leaders shared how they navigate daily alignment, build trust through authentic presence, and create cultures where growth isn't optional—it's essential. Whether you're managing digital transformation, building cross-generational teams, or simply trying to stay grounded amid constant change, these insights remind us that leadership isn't about perfection. It's about showing up with curiosity, courage, and the empathy that changes everything.
(Section One) 📍 📍 I think 📍 resilience is really this place of falling down and getting back up and falling down and getting back up, getting outta bed every day knowing 📍 that, you know that you have within you what you need to survive. And not just to survive, but to flourish, right in those spaces.
📍 one thing that I know for sure is that growth doesn't happen in the easy times. It doesn't happen when. the path is known in front of you. it happens in, 📍 the scary times. It happens in the times where you don't know where that next step is, but you press on and journey along the way.
📍 Equity is not a side project. It has to be the lens that we look 📍 through in clinical decision making and operationally as well.
(Section Two) 📍 📍 📍 “Courage always comes before growth — that quiet, persistent voice that says,, 📍 ‘I’ll try anyway.’”
📍 📍 I've 📍 always been the kind of person that's okay, well now let's do this.
And I then go do that. And that was just another example of it where I was just like, okay, I want to not do that anymore and I wanna do 📍 something else. And that's something else. Was starting my own business because I'm glutton for punishment and I like to do really hard things.
at 📍 some point, I think we all have that desire maybe to sail away from the shore a little bit. To maybe stick our neck out there and take a little risk.
📍 📍 growth doesn't happen in the easy times. It doesn't happen when. the path is known in front of you. it happens in, the scary times. It happens in the times where you don't know where that next step is, but you press on and journey along the way.
(Section Three) 📍 📍 📍 “Empathy is what keeps us grounded in leadership — 📍 it’s how we remember to see the human 📍 before the headline.”
📍 📍 📍 Here's the 📍 deal when it comes to empathy, some people, they have this thought that when you're being empathetic, that you know that it's just so you're being extremely soft, that you're just allowing people to just walk, right over you and you're just, just letting 📍 people just do whatever they want.
And that's not it at all. Empathy is. A powerful tool. It's what you can do to move the needle, whether you're trying to, improve someone's performance or improve a product or anything.
you 📍 lead with data and heart, right? So, while we're looking at the data and the metrics, we're also making sure that we are integrating feedback from our patients.
What 📍 was your experience with us today? What was missing? How can we be better? And just really kind of making sure that equity is at the core of everything we do.
📍 my job is not to be 📍 interesting. My job is to be interested.
📍 it's a really fascinating way of delivering medicine and delivering care 📍 because so much of it is centered around respect and trust in us.
📍 📍 In leadership and life, balance isn’t perfection. 📍 It’s grace — the practice of returning to center, 📍 again and again.
📍 📍 📍 It's not a, you know. I go to a retreat and I find my center. It's hundreds of times it's in a given day, making sure that we're coming back to that place of alignment. And then 📍 moving into our next decision, our next conversation, our next meeting with the sense of groundedness that we can bring when we are healthy.
📍 it's really truly being there with the person. If you have ever. truly been in a space with somebody and you 📍 are the only person that person is focused on and the only thing that they are thinking about in the time, it can almost be life changing.
📍 there is a reason why we practice, right?
There's a reason why we train when we're gonna run a marathon 📍 or going to go hiking, or when we're gonna give a presentation. That practice builds up our confidence.
📍 📍 Learning connects us — 📍 across generations, across stories. 📍 It’s how we keep growing, no matter where we are.
📍 📍 I think there's a 📍 great opportunity now to pair younger employees up.
Gen Z's alphas with baby boomers to learn from them 📍 in less formal situations. You think about not just the health care knowledge that is out there, but just the life knowledge that is out there.
📍 I think the philosophy here is that people don't really fear change. They fear being changed without being heard and involved. And 📍 when we actually looped them in and they had some ownership and clarity, then that space to innovate was just, it flourished.
📍 And so number one, I think for us, growth is like the cultural imperative, right? And a lot of people say that, say,, I want a growth oriented company, but I try and tell our developers it is an absolute necessity in our industry, right? Because it's not a nice to have that, oh, maybe you polish your development skills, maybe you learn a new framework, that sort of thing.
It literally is job security, and it is the way that you stay relevant in this current 📍 field, right?
📍 📍 “As we look ahead, may we keep showing up — with 📍 courage, with curiosity, 📍 and with empathy that changes everything.”
📍 📍 📍 Empathy means power. People, they, they look at it as a soft skill. They and soft skills. It just gets such a bad name, maybe because it's called, the word soft in it. But that's how you connect. That's how you drive 📍 change. That's how you build relationships.
That's how you manage conflict. And that's exactly how you work with jerks. You do it through empathy. And empathy is power.
I think 📍 the small steps of knowing what your baseline is of going, okay, here I am today, am I making 2% difference? Am I moving that meter 2% every day? But it also entails getting a great support system, having people 📍 around you that believe you, that will walk with you, that will help you, that will cheer you on.
We are not meant to do this life alone,
It's really about the opportunity. to create strong cross sector personal relationships that you would have never had with your customers, your vendors, whoever they are, because you need the relationship before you have an ask.
