Episode 4: Leading with Head and Heart — Dr. Lisa Coplit’s Journey from Student to Dean
Rahul
Welcome to Learning to Lead, a podcast about leadership, teamwork, and reimagining healthcare. This podcast is for learners, educators, and healthcare professionals interested in building leadership skills in a supportive community.
We are your hosts Rahul Anand, Maya Doyle, Peter Longley, Amber Vargas, and Brooklynn Weber.
Together we bring you conversations with emerging and established leaders, deep dives and hacks to help you become the best leader you can be.
Rahul
What does it take to lead with both head and heart in healthcare? In this episode, Doctor Lisa Coplit, physician, educator, and leader, shares the defining moments of her journey. From rising through academic medicine to embracing vulnerability, cultivating a growth mindset, and being authentic, Lisa shows us how these qualities can be powerful strengths and what it truly means to be a multiplier who leads with purpose and serves with integrity. I'm your host, Rahul, and with me are our co-hosts Amber.
Amber
Hello.
Rahul
And Pete.
Pete
Hello.
Rahul
Our guest today is Doctor Lisa Coplit. Lisa started her medical journey at the Boston University School of Medicine, where she completed her Medical Degree, Internal Medicine Residency, and Chief Residency. In 2011, she brought her passion for medical education to the Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, joining as one of its founding faculty members. Over the last 15 years, she's played a key role in shaping the next generation of medical professionals at QU Netter, most recently as the senior associate Dean of Faculty affairs, and soon will also serve as the interim Dean. Lisa hosts the Told Me podcast that is a treasure trove of pearls on how to become a better medical educator. But to simply list her titles barely scratches the surface of Lisa's impact. Lisa is one of the most authentic and effective leaders I've ever met in my life. She is a driving force behind the development of hundreds, if not thousands, of faculty and students, helping them grow as teachers and leaders of the highest caliber. Lisa, it's an honor to have you with us. Welcome.
Lisa
It's a great honor and pleasure to be here and I thank you for that very generous introduction.
Rahul
We're eager to hear about your journey that has shaped you as a leader. So let's start from the beginning. What brought you into medicine and how did your journey evolve from being a medical student to going into academic medicine?
Lisa
I have to be honest to say that I thought about being a doctor from the time I was a kid. I had a book and every year in that book you put in it your school photo and probably something, your best friends, I think. And what do you want to be when you grow up? And for a long time I put a doctor or a singer. That's I know there are a couple of other things in between, but since I'm not a very good singer, you know, that's sort of naturally evolved. But I really held on to that from the time that I was a kid. And then, you know, after I went into medicine, it's interesting. And one of the things I like to help students to learn about are what are all the different things that you can do with that degree, it's really limitless, I would say.
And I never thought or imagined, you know what I'm doing now, certainly when I went into medical school, but I also didn't know what a career as a medical educator looked like. I didn't know what the possibilities were like. And so I would say that probably the most formative experience was my Chief Resident year. We had three institutions within Boston Medical Center and one of them was the VA of Boston, and the year that I became Chief, all the VA's merged such that BU, which used to do all of our we used to do all of our rotations at the Boston VA in Jamaica Plain. All inpatient rotations merged so that they were all going to be at the Jamaica Plain, VA, and that meant that Brigham and Women's Internal Medicine residency program and Beth Israel Internal Medicine residency program were all coming to the same institution. And keep in mind I was a Chief Resident, so I did not fully understand the administrative oversight, but what I was told at the time was that BU would be sort of in charge for the first couple of years. And so the Chief Residents and I happened to be stationed at the VA with my Co chief, we had six Chiefs, 2 at each institution. We were handed the responsibility of the curriculum for the residents.
Rahul
Wow.
Lisa
And we were handed with the responsibility to figure out how to create an educational experience for all of these residents, these three programs that were all completely different and separate programs. So that was my first introduction to curriculum development. It was also the first time that I had to think about instructional methods. I didn't have labels for these things at the time, but that's what I was doing. And of course, we had oversight by fantastic educators who did know what all of those things meant. But we we had a lot of autonomy, and it was so exciting. I was teaching in formal settings every day, and obviously informally every day, and it lit a fire in me and I said I have to be in academic medicine. I have to teach in my career and so that was definitely a pivotal point for me. And then after my chief year, I ended up going to New York to be in the same place as my husband. We had been apart for a few years, so that narrowed down the field to all of New York City and I ended up very very fortunately, being at what was then the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and is now the Icon School of Medicine, and I started my first faculty position there as a clinician educator. And it just so happens that the Dean for medical education, Doctor Larry Smith, who I always will consider one of my mentors, was starting something that he was calling the Institute for Medical Education. He had had a gift from a a generous gift from a grateful patient. And with that, he wanted to start this institute and the role of the Institute would be primarily to provide faculty development for the School. So here I am, a complete novice to this whole world of medical education as a career, and my program director, Doctor David Bottinelli, who's now the Dean at Hofstra. Also, I will always consider just such a pivotal mentor for me and still do. He helped me think through, you know, what could a position there look like, and he spoke with Larry and we all talked together. And how lucky was I to get part of my time protected to teach in that institute as the first faculty member, and I always say that Larry was a believer in getting the rookie and developing them rather than, you know, hiring the really expensive pro. And it's something that I really am obviously grateful for and so he had a lot of relatively junior, very passionate, motivated young medical educators in his team and I felt like I sort of grew up with that group and he developed us. He sent me to the Harvard Macy Program for physician educators. He sent me to the Stanford Faculty Development Program for a month, and I started to gain this knowledge and these skills and then come back and share that in the form of faculty development. And it changed my whole career with that and all of that just lit more and more light bulbs in my brain of what I knew I wanted to do. Never would have, I didn't even know what faculty development was obviously prior to that.
Rahul
Wow, what a story. A couple of things really stand out to me. One is that the chief residency position was this unique, both follower and leader, follower for the people above you, and leader for the residence that you're responsible for. And it showed that you're ready to take on more responsibility and then the challenge presented itself and the choices you made and the outcomes and your experience really showed you what is it that you really love doing and you can create unique value with. And the second thing that stands out is Larry, shout out to Larry, we would call him a multiplier as a leader, who's seeing people, not for who they are, but who they can become and then give them the resources and the opportunities to really show what they're capable of.
Lisa
Yes. I love that you said that about Larry. I always have said about him, and I've told him this many times, is that he had the ability so often to see in others what they could not see in themselves yet. And I think that's a real gift actually as a leader.
Rahul
Yeah, that's fantastic. Shout out.
Lisa
The remainder of the story, what happened about five years after I started at Mount Sinai is that Larry went on to start the Medical School at Hofstra, the new school, and to be the Dean. And I was then made the Director of the Institute for Medical Education at that point, and so that was, I would say, my first formal leadership role, even though I think I had several before that unknowingly, that was probably my first formal role. And then in that role, we obviously kept the primary mission of the Institute, which was to provide faculty development, and then we expanded it into a teaching academy. And the purpose there was to really create an institution-wide mechanism to be able to recognize and support our medical educators, whether they be MD, clinician educators, or PhD scientist educators, and that is something that really became a passion for me. I remember the day that one of my colleagues, Susie Rose, this is really what's called that mentorship mosaic, right? Susie Rose is an absolutely a mentor of mine. She was our Dean for Student Affairs and I remember her calling me into her office and telling me that she was leaving and she was going on to UConn to be the Dean for Education and it's it's a bigger title than that, but I'm not remembering what it is. And she said I would love for you to come with me, but I'm just starting and I don't know what I'm gonna need. And I said ohh my goodness, that's just. You know, first of all, I was sad that she was leaving, I was sort of gutted. But I said no, no, no, no, no, I could never leave. I love my job so very much. And she said, well, you know, Bruce Keppen, who was in the job that she was taking over, had just left to start a brand new Medical School at Quinnipiac. And she said, you know, Bruce Keppen is doing this and he's starting a new School and you should look into that. And that might be really fun. And I said, well, it's just too it's too far away. And I love my job. And I just sort of brushed it right aside. And then I walked out of her office and I remembered something that David Bottinelli had said to me as a Chief when I was looking for a job. And he said whenever somebody wants to talk, you always listen. Now, that was not exactly the case, Bruce was not asking me to talk, but that was sort of how it clicked in my head. What it was, was there might be something interesting here. Why wouldn't I just look at it? And so I went back into her office, I think 20 minutes later, and I said sure because she had said I can send him your CV. Sent her my CV. She sent it to him. And Bruce literally emailed me an hour later and said I want to talk to you.
Rahul
What a great tip and what a great story there.
Lisa
I love to share that learning because it really has been pivotal I would say throughout my career to just remember Dave's words in my mind.
Rahul
So so you have us hooked. Tell us what happened then?
Lisa
I think I was the 6th hire. But I remember going to see the school and Bruce taking me on a tour himself, and he wanted somebody to come and do faculty development and help with assessment as well. And it all just happened very quickly and it was so exciting. And I will say, coming to Quinnipiac at that moment in time, in that moment in my career was probably the most invigorating period, I would say of my career in total, because starting the school, you know, I signed on to do this job, right. But none of us who signed on in the beginning just did the job we were hired for. It was probably the minority of what we did because what we needed to do was put a medical school together on paper to submit to the LCME. And so we all had to become, I say we all had to become these pluripotent educators and learn everything we could about all the different aspects of a medical school and bring that knowledge to bear to create what we thought would be the best outcome. And then little by little, of course, bringing in people with more expertise across the scope of the school. And then once the school got up and running, we had more people. We brought in more experts, little by little. We all started to then differentiate into, you know, our jobs that we were hired to do. But it was just a tremendous learning curve and incredibly exciting.
Rahul
Yeah. What a huge lift and contribution. And you not only did that, you also created a whole podcast series on the founding of the school, which I think everyone starting a medical school should listen to. There's so many pearls in there.
Amber
This is Amber. So yes. So we discussed your first formal leadership position, but I'm curious to know a little bit more about if there was a point in your career where you first felt like, OK, now I'm emerging as a leader, when did you start to think of yourself as a leader?
Lisa
I don't think there was one moment. I really think that it happened in small increments. I would say the first time I probably felt it tangibly was as a Resident running a team. Although I knew very well that I wasn't in charge of the team, that was the attending. But I knew that I had an important leadership role because the day-to-day was really my responsibility. The learning of the Intern and the students was primarily my responsibility. I spent the most time with them and the responsibility for the patients lives was really I felt that so acutely as a resident, because even though the attending was in charge, tt's really it's usually the residents who can only respond immediately when a patient's in distress and has to make very quick in the moment decisions. So I think that was the first time I really felt that. And then when I was an attending, that was a different jump. That was a whole new level of responsibility. Although the authority, my authority, of course, was my Division Chief and my Department Chair. But it's really as an attending that the buck stops with you in terms of that patient care, in terms of the running of your team and the effective running, in terms of the teaching. So that's yet a different level of responsibility. So it's really this sort of progression of responsibility. And as a very new attending, I remember there was this point where I realized that my position alone, didn't matter who I was, how down to Earth I was, the comfortable learning environment that I was trying to create for my team so that they felt comfortable to bring problems to me. That my position and my title changed the way that others perceive me and how they felt around me and that to some degree there was nothing I could do about that and I had to be comfortable with it. And I remember that very, very acutely. I do think in my faculty development role, I think that the perception of feeling like a leader took a little bit longer than it did in direct patient care. It was probably somewhere around a year before I was appointed into that formal leadership role as the Director of the Institute.
Amber
As a medical student who's graduating soon and going to be a resident very soon, thank you for these pearls and words of wisdom. You know, as I get myself mentally prepared to start leading teams myself.
Lisa
I am so excited for you, and I often reassure 4th years that, to be honest, the biggest jump you make is not between 4th year and internship, it's really between internship and your PGY2 year because that's when you start leading the team. So you're good. You still have lots and lots of layers above you. So you don't have to worry about that yet, you'll have lots of guidance.
Amber
Awesome. Thank you.
Rahul
And then it seems that your experience at Mount Sinai was formative in your development as a leader as well. Is there a memorable moment or experience from that phase that comes to mind?
Lisa
Obviously there are many, many moments, and yet one that comes to mind is one where I made a mistake. And I think that it was certainly in that early phase of taking on that formal leadership role where I began to really learn about anticipating unintended consequences. I was in a meeting where I had created the committee structure, a brand new structure, I had created the voting rules, and yet in our very first meeting, which really when you think about it was the test run, right. This was all new. I had never put together this type of infrastructure before. There was a moment where I felt very uncomfortable with one of the resulting votes, just one of them. And in retrospect, I would have suggested that we table that vote until we had more information. And the learning point there for me was that it's always better to pause and slow down when you're not sure that something's being done correctly.
We do this in clinical settings. Surgeons do this, right. You have timeouts when you're doing procedures or surgery, and anybody on the team can call a timeout and double check that everything is being done correctly. So there's no reason that we can't do that in our leadership roles in every other domain, even if it was your decision or you're leading the meeting or the decision made, maybe even more so in those settings, right to be in that learning leader position to have that growth mindset and say, wait a minute, I know this was my idea, but hold on. This isn't doesn't feel right. So that I think was one of many pivotal moments for me.
Rahul
I love your example and you've taught me so much about growth mindset in all of these years. Let's just double click on that concept because similarly early on as a leader, I might be really upset with myself or so hard on myself, think of that as a failure and let that set me back. But now, after having learned about growth mindset from you, I would see it very differently. So just talk about growth mindset and how can that be useful to leaders in bouncing back from such challenges.
Lisa
I love the opportunity to talk about growth mindset at any time because it's something that was really life changing for me when I learned about it. And I would say I probably learned about it somewhere around maybe eight years ago at a national conference. Of course, the K through 12 community knew about it before we did. But now, in graduate medical education, we are, and in undergraduate and graduate, we are adopting it. Which I'm so glad that we are because it's so important when you think about the stakes that we have in our careers. So a growth mindset is the belief that our abilities and our intelligence can be developed, instead of believing that they are fixed and immovable. So with a growth mindset, you value challenges and you value mistakes as learning experiences so that you can improve for the next go around. And we teach this now to our medical students very explicitly. And yet I think it's very similar to concepts like mental health care where we teach our students that it is a strength to care for yourself physically and mentally. That adopting a growth mindset is healthy and will help you through your career. And yet I still think that we maintain a double standard, that as you go higher and higher in leadership level, that you have less capacity for tolerance for mistakes for yourself, and less capacity for kindness to yourself in terms of well-being. You know that that goes for my learners because my job is to care for them. That goes for my colleagues, because if you're in a leadership position, my job is to be there for them and care for them, and it's so important that we remember that we are human and that we cannot care for others, if we don't care for ourselves. And I think part of that is remembering that growth mindset.
Rahul
Totally. If the same thing was happening to a friend, we would be so nice to them and coach them through it and for ourselves, we are just so hard on ourselves. We are hardwired to be so hard on ourselves. Yeah. It takes literally takes someone in the room or someone to coach you through that, to have that growth mindset when adversity is really happening.
Lisa
Yes. Which is why I really like that you said that and which is why you have to remember that in any position that you're in, at any level of leadership. And by the way, it gets it gets lonelier and lonelier as you go up. And you know the old saying, right? That it's lonely at the top. And it and it is in fact, and I think that we often feel there's less and less people who we can talk to about our challenges because we, again, we feel that that's our job is to hear other people's challenges, right? That's something that's probably one of the things that I try not to do in my leadership role is to share my challenges with those on my team beyond the ones that really affect them directly that they're a part of, because I want to be more in that, I'm here for you position. But having said that, you have to have colleagues, whether they're at your own institution. Whether they're within the university but maybe not in your school, whether they're not in your institution, you have to have colleagues that you can talk to who can be a sounding board and really help to coach you.
Rahul
That's another great tip. So you're telling us about the balance between being vulnerable and genuinely sharing with your team versus oversharing and just weighing them with the things that are on your mind.
Let's talk a little bit about transitions because you're great at that. So in your transition from being a Clinician Educator at Mount Sinai to now coming to Netter and taking over as the Dean of Faculty Development and then Faculty Affairs tell us how you navigated the transition into a new role.
Lisa
Often it was gradual. It was a very gradual development and it didn't feel like a massive step up. But there are a couple of transitions that did feel bigger than others, and I would say that each step, you know, brought new challenges and new content. I think one of the things that I learned in some of the bigger transitions of where I was feeling some imposter syndrome, is that it's important to realize and to share with others, to demystify career development that most people, when taking on a new role, are doing work that is new to them. And I love to share that with other people. To say, just remember that, that it's OK that you're taking on this new role. And that a whole bunch of it is new to you, that is expected, right. Otherwise people would only be making lateral moves. We would never move up into a new leadership position. And even if you are making a lateral move, the context is different. So we're always doing new things and then that lends itself. Makes the conditions ripe for some imposter syndrome, so I think it's really important to realize that you're going to have to settle in to the uncomfortable feeling, maybe for some who are more evolved, it's not as uncomfortable, but I think it's an often uncomfortable feeling that you're going to be learning and leading at the same time. And in fact, I think if you're a great leader, you're always learning and leading and you're doing it with transparency. You know, and that's what a learning leader is. I'm happy to share for me, a really pivotal conversation that opened my eyes to this and that was a conversation with one of my best friends. She is an incredibly competent, strong, leader in the business world, so it's a whole different world than us in academia. And I remember when I was taking on a new role and I was doing a lot of new things I'd never done before, and she said hold on a minute, because of course I was saying, “I don't know. Did they make a bad decision? I don't. You know, I don't know what I'm doing in part of this job.” And she said hold on one minute. She said they did not hire you for your content expertise in all that you would be doing. They hired you because you're smart and resourceful and you will be able to figure out the pieces that you don't know and you are motivated, right? So there's also a corollary to I remember when I was hiring somebody and another very wise colleague of mine who is an incredible leader, Michelle Sontay, she's still at Mount Sinai and we were hiring somebody. And that person didn't have any content, expertise relevant to the job, and she said, what I look for, I look for somebody who's smart and motivated because that combination can do anything. So if you put those two pieces together, those two moments together, when my mind really expanded, that for me was very, very pivotal. And I now carry that inside myself and it helps me in all those moments of questioning, I've never done this before. So that's OK, it's going to be fun. That's what makes it fun. I'm going to figure it out and I'll talk to people who do know more about it if I need to.
Rahul
I love that example and a couple of things that resonate with me. One is a great tip you said, that when you are transitioning to a new position, you are actually going to need time to transition. I remember when I was taking over as hospital epidemiologist at a healthcare center, one of the biggest pieces of advice that lifted the weight of my shoulders was the exact same thing. That it's going to take you a couple of years before you see everything under your nose and are comfortable, so be prepared to be off balance for a couple of years and that was huge.
Lisa
And just to build on that, I'll say that one of the things that Susie Rose told me when I was leaving Mount Sinai and moving to Quinnipiac, is she said, now just prepare yourself because I've been in one place for 10 years, she said, just prepare yourself that it takes a good six months to even feel like you have your feet under you. And it takes a solid year to really feel like you're settling into the job. So I think that completely goes along with what you're saying. And these are all these pearls of wisdom that I got from other people that I love to share, because if we can help other people get there more quickly and with less angst, right, then that just feels so rewarding.
Rahul
Yeah. And the second thing you said, I think highlighted the power of not knowing. So come have fun in this transition, ask questions, talk to people smarter than you. And there is a lot of power in not knowing, because then you start to question all the assumptions that somebody else may have been working with.
Pete
This is Pete. And the one thing that I'm always curious about is what are you learning about yourself that surprised you, right. When you're going through this journey and transitions and bumping into things with that imposter syndrome and everything, what surprised you in the short term, long term, however you want to answer that.
Lisa
One of the things that surprised me over the last, I would say couple of years, and it was when I was serving in the Interim Senior Associate Dean for Education position while I was a simultaneously in my current position as the Senior Dean for Faculty Affairs. And it was not that I loved the both roles, that didn't surprise me at all. One of the reasons I love faculty development is because you get to do everything. And I enjoy so much and get so much satisfaction within the entire realm of medical education, so that did not surprise me. Really interested in curriculum, assessment, teaching, instructional methods, all of it. What surprised me was how much I loved having this broad 30,000 foot view across all of it at the same time. That surprised me and that I was able to contribute and make impactful decisions. And I think more impactful decisions because I had this perspective in each of the other domains that I didn't have before. So understanding all that's going on with the faculty while I am functioning in the education role was incredibly useful, and vice versa. And I think that it brought to light for me, and made it explicit for me, that I enjoy being in a leadership position for that reason. I don't think I'd ever realized that I enjoy being in a leadership position. And that then got me thinking more about “the why” and it actually tapped back into the things that have brought me fulfillment in my career from the beginning, which is being able to make a direct positive impact on other people's lives for the better. And that is why I became a doctor. And that is what I sometimes miss very much in seeing patients. And so it it occurred to me that being in this leadership position and being able to make impactful decisions for the benefit of others and this big cascade of others. So I might be making a decision that's in the benefit of the faculty, but it has a downstream benefit for the students, which has a downstream benefit for their patients, right. My direct decision might not be making this direct benefit, but along the way that is the long term downstream effect, feels impactful and meaningful. When my daughter was very young and I had to leave and go to work, and those painful moments of “Mommy, why do you have to go?” I used to tell her there are two reasons why we have to work, one is so that we can make enough money to put food on the table and have this home. And hopefully be able to go to new places and experience new things. And the other is that we need to do something in life that does good in the world. And so I have to go off and do something good for the world. So I feel like I've been able to find ways throughout my career to do that and all different roles.
Pete
Wow.
Rahul
Wow, and yes, you have. What a great concept this is for emerging leaders. So a lot of our listeners, students, trainees, early career professionals, they are well versed in taking care of individuals and even teams, but the systems part is quite challenging for them. You, on the other hand, seem to have loved it and thrived in it. What's your secret?
Lisa
So I'll answer that from the perspective of what I enjoy about it. And I think part of what I enjoy about it is that it requires you to learn more and more and more. And that is something that I love when I think about someday, what am I going to do when I retire? One of the things I always think that I'm definitely going to do is I have to be somewhere near higher education because I'll probably go to my local university and audit a bunch of classes of things that I've always wanted to learn about. So I think to be continually learning, you know, it allows you to do that when you move into different roles and do different things. When I think about systems and the complexity can sometimes become so overwhelming of how do you foster the effective, efficient functioning of a very complex system over which you only have control over some small bit, right. So obviously there are people with much more knowledge than me, who spent their careers studying this, so I will just take one little piece that I have found to be helpful in being effective within, you know, in being a cog in that wheel. And that is communication. So the different pieces, centers, departments, categories, you know of a system and in our case, let's say our medical school, all those different pieces, they need to have a whole bunch of experts who are making them run effectively. So they do function to some degree autonomously, but the system cannot function effectively if there's not very deliberate communication systems or a communication system put into place to make sure that those people, those individuals, are talking to each other and know what the others are doing. So that's just my own personal, I would say, learning point that I have taken from the running of effective systems. But of course there are many and it is a whole science in and of itself.
Rahul
So what I'm hearing from you is one of the big things that helps is communication up, down and across the system and it helps you to understand and share what everyone's doing and perhaps listen and learn about new things from others as well.
Lisa
That's exactly right. And particularly, I think at decision making moments, remembering to just stop for a second, because we're all so busy and stop for a second. And think about who are the other people, and therefore, what are the other pieces, centers, departments, that I need to think about before I make that decision.
Rahul
Yeah, this is another great tip you've given me in the past. Which is in leading, think about key moments when they're happening and just slow yourself down and give yourself whatever you need to succeed in those moments. So here you are, as an established leader. Now, what are some of the key principles or practices that you live by that guide you now as a leader?
Lisa
I have a couple that I would say guide, and and by the way, these are just little pearls. I have sort of many principles I think that guide my everyday actions but just little pearls that I come back to often. One is you never go to your boss with a complaint or concern without always having ideas for strategies and solutions to address it. And I think about that often, right, because there's always challenges that come up and sometimes I can come up with solutions on my own. And sometimes I'm sort of stuck, right. And I need to go to my boss, who is the Dean. And so before I do that, I always stop and think about what are possible, I might not know what the solution or strategy is, but what are possible solutions to at least get that conversation going? And by the way, that is something I learned from Dave Bottinelli. I will attribute everything when I can. The other one, of one of the other ones, is that when I'm struggling to make a decision, I've learned that it's important to stop and make sure that I have enough data to make that decision. I found a really interesting corollary because I do the training for new PBL facilitators and one of the things that I learned when I was learning to facilitate PBL, and now that I share as a trainer of PBL facilitators. Is that you know, for those who don't know, Problem Based Learning is self-directed learning for students and it's used in all different industries, but we use it in our own medical school, in our Foundations of Medicine course to facilitate the learning of foundational sciences through patient cases. And the students take on the case as their own patient. And they come up with their own learning objectives and learning issues. And one of the things that I pass on to the facilitators is if the students are going around and around and around and just debating what do we do next or what is this diagnosis? That often is a clue that they just don't have enough information and they need to stop and put that on the board as a learning issue. So I took that as from my PBL learning and translated that into my decision making and different leadership roles that when I'm just circling and circling and circling a problem and I cannot come to something satisfying or that I think is the right way to approach it, that often it's because I need to stop and get more information.
Pete
Have a question. In being successful at your job or in your career, how much impact does a good environment help versus a toxic environment?
Lisa
Ah yes, because right environment can mean a lot of things. Well, we know from literature that a safe environment where we feel that we can be wrong, where we feel that we can express our opinions. We know that those environments promote retention. People want to work in those environments. And those are also environments that promote innovation. That's where you know, new ideas are welcomed. So the word pivotal comes to mind. I think it can make or break and the toxic environment, I think that's really interesting. It's something that I. Again, there are people who spend their careers studying each of these concepts that we're talking about. And I have not done an entire study right of what we would call a toxic work environment. But when I think toxic, one of the things that I think of is the book Multipliers. That was a book that to me was very instructive. And I think personally for myself, to me, books that are where you're learning something from it you know, a nonfiction book that's out there to teach us something, I think of that almost like a lecture. I leave the book and I take away, maybe at most sort of three pearls that I remember in a very, very enduring way. And one of the things that I remember very distinctly from that book is that the author made the point that people don't leave jobs, they leave bosses. And the bosses that they leave are the ones who are diminishers. And the bosses that people want to work for are the ones who are multipliers. And what is a multiplier? It's somebody who recognizes the value in the people around them. And lifts them up, develops them, gives them credit for the work that they do and helps them to do that work even better. Whereas obviously a diminisher is somebody who is taking credit for their team's work and trying to hold others down so that they can rise. And so I think that's one definition of a toxic work environment there can be. There's all sorts of reasons why it could be, but that's sort of one thing that comes to mind. So I do think that that environment being safe versus toxic, so to speak, I think is really pivotal.
Rahul
Every time I have a leadership conversation with you, Lisa, the concept of energy comes in. And I'm listening to you, and again, we've talked about managing your own energy in the past. But now from your answer about the environment, it's clear the importance of leaders and people around you and their impact on our energies. There are some who multiply the energy, and channel that towards the common goal. And then there are some who will completely drain your energy and you know there's a reason there's two staircases in every building, so that still really stands out to me. I want to ask you, in follow-up to Pete, what do you do to surround yourself with really good, smart people?
Lisa
I often don't have choice, right, of who might be surrounding me. When I do have choice in who I'm surrounded by, I would say that some of the most important characteristics are that they are people who really enjoy what they do. They feel passionate about it, because having that joy and passion is very motivating and it breeds a positive environment. And so it's the positivity. It is the shared love of what we're doing that to me makes it easy to come in every day and do good work.
Amber
Doctor Coplit, I think what you said was absolutely amazing and definitely resonated with me. To add to it, I think that the energy that we put out is very important, right? Like I think that if you come to a situation, if you come to a team with a positive outlook with a positive energy, then that's also what we attract, right? Like if you're nice to people, then they'll be nice to you. But on a greater level, you know, the energy that we put out is what we get back. So I just thought it was, that's what what you were saying reminded me of.
Lisa
And actually, I really love that you said that explicitly. Because I think that was implicit in what I was saying and I sort of it wasn't in the front of my mind to say that explicitly, but it's very, very true. And again, I'm happy to share something I've learned somewhere else that I've integrated and I think about often. I don't remember where I learned this. I can't remember if it was in a lecture. If it was on a podcast, I just don't remember. But it was somebody who was in a leadership position talking about how as they were stepping into a leadership position, what they learned from their boss. And what they learned was that they realized they would be running from one meeting to the next because they were so busy and they would get to that next meeting, and they're sometimes literally huffing and puffing. And there's this, like, exasperated, “Oh my God, I have so much to do.” You know, and this person said to their boss, why do you always just look so calm and together and this person's boss said, I actually think about that because you have to think about how do you want others to see you. So if somebody's coming to see you with that dynamic, right, that you're in that leadership position, did they want to hear you complain about the fact that you just had back-to-back meetings all morning and that you're tired? No. They want you to be there and ready to receive them and to be exuding that positive energy. Right, so sometimes we need to literally take a breath. Remember that this isn't the place for that, and that you're there and you need to be there for other people and that you have to put forth the positive energy if you want to get it back. So I love that you made that explicit.
Rahul
Wow, Lisa, thank you so much for such a great conversation and sharing your stories and insights on leadership. It's been such a joy and privilege. I've taken a lot from this conversation. So one of the things I am taking away is how step by step as we go on the journey of leadership, the power of having an open mind, being vulnerable and curious, communicating and asking questions and building relationships. And having an outlook, not just on one's individual sphere of work, but the importance of understanding the whole system, I think that's really the take away for me. What do you feel, Pete and Amber?
Pete
Doctor Coplit, thank you. The main take away that's resonating in me right now is authentic leadership at a high level is really the at the bare bones of it is being vulnerable. To be your real true self, but confidently, of course, to lead others in a way that you know raises all boats helps us all. So thank you.
Lisa
Thank you. I very much agree with that. I appreciate the opportunity to have these moments where we can be vulnerable with each other because I think that's when we connect. Most of these vulnerabilities, we all feel them right, so it allows us to connect. It allows us to form better relationships, whether it's at home or whether it's at work. And in these moments where we're hoping to help others to learn and to gain what took us maybe a very long time to help them get to more quickly, I think it's required. And I also think that being a great leader is also about again sitting with that sometimes discomfort of vulnerability, right, you then have to persevere through it. And find the answers and what you need and seek help where you need it. But that knowing it's OK and that it's inevitable that there will be moments of vulnerability.
Pete
Yeah. And I just see it as a dynamic of fighting society norms in the United States, where we're at, so that's the, I think the rub that I see.
Rahul
Another great leadership pearl from Lisa, being vulnerable is what builds trust in relationships and leaders often have to go first to make it safe for others. And then when others are vulnerable, then to acknowledge and honor that. So thank you for that pearl. Lisa, before we end, what is the one greatest lesson on leadership that you've learned that you want to share with our listeners?
Lisa
I truly do have one lesson that I hope to impart to anybody who would like to listen. And that is that success is happiness. Period. That is what I share with our students, particularly pre Match Day, when the anxiety level is really high. And it sounds so simple, but figuring out what makes you happy in life. Boy, we all know that's not such an easy task, right? But I do think it's really important to separate out on your leadership journey, take moments to really be honest with yourself. And think about do I want to go to this place or take on this new job? What are my motivations for doing it and do I think it will make me happy? One of the things particularly I find in medicine, one of the driving forces for so many of us in medicine, is from a young age you have a lot of folks who are very driven and often feel like the hardest road or the highest level is it's only if you take the hardest road or only if you get to the very very top level, right, have you been successful. I have to go to the most prestigious residency program. Right. And and on and on from there. And yet we all know that's not true, right? If you can stop at different moments in your life, there might be times that are very hard and very challenging that you need to go through because you believe on the other side of that, you're going to be successful. I think residency is a great example of that. That great, but the goal should be happiness. We have a luxury in medicine that we get to make the choice of how we'd like to utilize our careers in this field that is fairly stable. Most of us, we can feel fairly comfortable that we're going to be able to put food on the table and therefore we can choose our path that we feel joy from and can wake up and be happy to go to every morning and that is an incredible luxury in life, right to have job security for the most part. And to be able to get up and do something that you love every day and so really trying to separate out all the different competing factors and layers that we've put on ourselves and expectations to figure out what we really want to do that brings us joy is really important.
Rahul
Wow. What a great message to end our show. It tells us how by knowing what makes you happy, you've been able to channelize that to being so authentic and to saying hell yes to things that matter to you and make you happy and dive into them with passion and saying no thank you to the things that do not make you happy.
Lisa
Mhm.
Rahul
It really goes to show what makes you the leader you are.
Lisa
Thank you.
Rahul
Alright, that was a great show and listeners, we'd love to hear from all of you. So let's keep the conversation going. Thanks for tuning in. And until next time, take care and keep learning and leading.
Brooke
Thank you for listening to our show. Learning to Lead is a production of the Quinnipiac University podcast studio, in partnership with the Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences.
Creators of this show are Rahul Anand, Maya Doyle, Peter Longley, Amber Vargas and Brooklynn Weber.
The student producer is Brooklynn Weber, and the executive producer is David DesRoches.
Connect with us on social media @LearningToLeadPod or email us at LearningToLeadPod@quinnipiac.edu.