We are the solution, together, working to establish a new paradigm of healthcare, said Daniel Friedland, MD, earlier today at the 2018 Integrative Healthcare Symposium annual conference in New York City. There's something really profound about how integrative healthcare can help with businesses.
What does it mean to create truly healthy leaders that create truly healthy organizations that can do optimal good in the world? Conscious capitalism has a lot to teach us in integrative medicine, Frieldand said.
Friedland says leadership revolves around a few principles, including:
- Higher purpose drives
- All stakeholders in the ecosystem are represented
- Conscious leadership drives conscious culture and a thriving environment
So, what is leadership? It's an act of influence. He suggests thinking about the qualities of the leaders you admire. High performance readership is a creative mindset. Low performance leadership is a reactive mindset. Good leaders are in service of something higher than themselves. They are achievement oriented, relatable, authentic, systems aware, and self-aware.
The brain and leadership have a strong connection, Friedland said. If someone feels stressed and burned out, they're ability to lead effectively diminishes. But if they are able to tab into what inspires them and live mindfully day to day, they are in the best mental and emotional state to lead effectively.
Burnout stems from three things:
- Emotional exhaustion
- Depersonalization
- Reduced personal accomplishment
Practitioners should know how the brain works—it is biased towards safety, not happiness, and naturally reacts to keep us alive. Therefore it is extremely susceptible to stress and requires a sense belonging.
"Burnout is not a weakness," said Friedland. "It is simply a physiological manifestation."
In integrative healthcare, we are pre-disposed to burnout, he said. Over 54 percent of physicians have symptoms of burnout. Providers are driven to be of service to others, and are often compulsively workaholic. A good leader, a good practitioner, has to be aware of burnout and adopt strategies that allow them to lead well from within, said Friedland.
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