Maureen Werrbach 00:00:00  Hey there. Welcome back to the Group Practice Exchange podcast. Today we’re diving into a topic that’s game changing for group practice owners, and that’s building a leadership team to support your business. If you’re feeling stretched thin, juggling everything from client care to admin tasks, it might be time to start thinking about a leadership team. This episode is inspired by a training I recently led on how to create a leadership structure that helps your practice grow in a sustainable way, and gives you back your time. We’ll talk about why a leadership team is essential, the challenges you might face when setting one up, and practical steps for making it work. So if you’re ready to share the load and take your practice to the next level, this one’s for you. Welcome to The Group Practice Exchange Podcast, where we talk about all things related to group practice ownership. I’m your host, Maureen Werrbach. This episode is sponsored by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is my favorite EHR, and it’s one that I’ve been using in my own group practice since 2014. They’ve got everything you need to be successful in your group practice, and they’re constantly making updates and have live support. If you want two free months of therapy notes, go to Therapynotes.com/r/thegrouppracticeexchange.com. 

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So I want to start with the big question, which is why do you need a leadership team as a group practice owner? The truth is, as your practice grows, it becomes impossible to do it all on your own. You need people who can share the workload and own specific outcomes. This doesn’t just benefit you, it’s really good for your business too. So here are some key benefits. One is that you’re sharing the load. You no longer have to be the only one making decisions or solving problems. A leadership team distributes responsibility, which means you have more time to focus on the bigger picture. And I know that’s something that was really important to me. It got me out of having to be a part of the day to day and put out fires myself every day. It also creates growth opportunities. A solid leadership structure will give your team room to grow, and it keeps your best employees, or the ones that are superstar types, engaged and ensures that they don’t feel like they’ve outgrown your business.

Maureen Werrbach 00:03:28  Three it’s scalability if you want to grow your practice. A leadership team isn’t optional. It’s essential they help you manage more people, processes, and systems without everything bottlenecking to you, which will happen if you’re trying to lead in all aspects of your business and it helps with creating a legacy. A truly successful business is one that can run without you. Creating a leadership team is the first step towards building something that can last beyond you. If something were to happen to you or you just want to move on. But here’s the thing sharing power isn’t always easy. So let’s talk about some common struggles that I see not only myself having had as I brought on a leadership team, but others that I’ve coached as well talking about. So creating a leadership team can sound great in theory, but in practice it can feel uncomfortable. As the owner, you’re used to being in control and letting go can be really tough. Here are some common struggles that I see. One is around sharing power. You’re no longer the sole decision maker, and that can feel strange at first.

Maureen Werrbach 00:04:29  When you start to watch other leaders make decisions that might not always be what you thought you would do. Two is letting go of perfectionism. Things might not always get done exactly how you do them, and that has to be okay. The goal is progress, not perfection. And then the idea of feeling unneeded that was something I actually struggled a lot with, is when your team starts handing things or handling things I should say on their own. It might leave you wondering where you fit in as the practice owner, but this is a good thing and it means your system is working. But I know that was something I struggled with is like, who am I if I’m not someone that is a part of making all the decisions in the business, there’s also the challenge of moving people into leadership roles, for example, clinicians turn leaders might struggle with boundaries when managing their former peers, and great clinicians don’t automatically make great leaders. It takes training, support, and time. But don’t let these challenges scare you off.

Maureen Werrbach 00:05:24  With the right approach, you can build a leadership team that does support your vision. It just takes time and effort on your end. So steps to building your leadership team. How do you actually build your leadership team? Let’s break it down into a few different steps. As you all know, I like to break things down into easy steps as often as I possibly can. One is understanding your core leadership roles. I talk about this in a lot of podcast episode about creating roles and functions or responsibilities. If you need support in that. My book The Accountability Equation is really good at helping build out your core leadership roles and what those responsibilities should look like. But you want to start by identifying what leadership roles your practice needs. This could include clinical leads, administrative leads. Marketing leads. Financial Sports. Think about the areas where you’re stretched thin or where you lack expertise. Two you’re going to assess your current need, right? Look at where your practice is now and where you want it to be in the next year.

Maureen Werrbach 00:06:24  What roles are going to help you get there now? Of course, all roles are important, but which ones are needing extra TLC to help you get there? Also, consider where your strengths and weaknesses are. If hiring and HR aren’t your thing, maybe your next leadership role is a Director of Operations or someone in charge of HR so that they can take that off of your plate. Three you’re going to want to train, empower and create accountability. So leadership isn’t just about titles. It’s about giving people the tools and authority they need to succeed. So a few tips for that is building leadership manuals that outline expectations, decision making protocols and goals. Offer training and mentorship to help your leaders grow into those roles. And one thing I see in this arena of training is that we don’t dedicate enough time to truly help people grow into their roles. We might not dedicate the right amount of time and just give them, you know, a month or so of training and then hope that they can figure out the rest.

Maureen Werrbach 00:07:24  And we really want to dedicate more time than we actually think we need to, so that they can actually be set up for success. And then lastly, co-creating accountability system so that everyone knows what they’re responsible for and how success is measured. And then lastly is to review and adjust regularly. Building a leadership team isn’t just like a set it and forget it process. You have to regularly check in to assess what’s working and what isn’t. I’ve talked about this in other episodes that as your business grows, systems and processes that worked when you were smaller might not necessarily work. Once you’re a larger practice. So are your leaders following through on their accountabilities? Are they empowered to make decisions? Use these check ins to refine and improve. Remember, a leadership team only works if you let them lead. Micromanaging will only slow things down and create bottlenecks, and it’ll confuse the people that are being led into coming to you. Which of course takes time away from you being a visionary. So when we think about supporting clinicians as leaders, if you’re promoting a clinician into a leadership role, there are some unique challenges to keep in mind.

Maureen Werrbach 00:08:32  First, not every clinician is naturally suited for leadership, and that’s okay. Leadership is a skill that can be learned, but it does take time and support, and you need to make sure that you’re setting them up for success. One is around communication training, teaching them how to set boundaries and communicate expectations without damaging relationships with their peers is so important. It’s something that I’ve seen in my own practice, and something that I witness in coaching with other group practice owners is helping leaders who are once peers learn how to set expectations and boundaries without damaging those relationships with peers. Self-awareness, encouraging them to reflect on their tone, their timing, their actions. Leadership requires a different mindset than being a clinician, right? They have to look at making decisions. That’s in the best interest of the business as a whole, not on every single individual person in the practice, because what one person wants may be in direct opposition with what another person wants. And we can’t look at pleasing the needs of every individual person, because we have to make sure that it’s not at the expense of the health of the business as a whole, and then co-creation, working with your leaders to build their role, focus on their strengths and passions.

Maureen Werrbach 00:09:48  This creates a sense of ownership and alignment with the business. And then a final tip with this is start small. Give them decisions that they can make independently, and gradually increase their responsibility as they grow more confident. All right. So delegation and decision making is something that I have noticed is a big issue when practice owners bring in leaders. Delegation is a huge part of leadership. And if you’re going to step back, you need to trust that your team is going to be able to make decisions in your stead. Right. So a simple framework to help this is what I call like the tree analogy, which is based off of a book I read a million years ago, like over a decade ago. I don’t remember who wrote the book, but it’s the concept of the tree has really stuck with me, which is thinking of leaf level, branch level, trunk level, and root level decisions. And so those are leaf level, our decisions that can be made without you. These are routine decisions that they can handle independently that might be providing supervision.

Maureen Werrbach 00:10:47  Right. Or a clinician seeing a client or an intake person answering the phone and scheduling an appointment. Right. Once they learn how to do it, they can do these things independently. Then there’s branch level decisions, which are decisions that they make, but they notify you about it some interval, whether it’s at a weekly meeting or a monthly meeting. And so that might be something like if your clinical director wants to make higher like a higher right, maybe you’re at a point where you don’t need to approve every person that’s hired, but you get notified of those that do get hired so that you’re aware. Then there’s the trunk level decisions of a tree, which is more collaborative decision making. These are big picture decisions that you work on together. Those tend to be real leadership sort of decisions. And that example of that might be someone who is in charge of clinical leadership, wanting to bring in another type of service. Maybe your person in charge of clinical operations wants to bring on med management right now, she’s maybe not going to make that decision on her own without collaborating with you.

Maureen Werrbach 00:11:53  To make sure that there are any missing pieces or thought processes can be done collaboratively with you. That’s typically an example of something that’s trunk level, where you’re making those decisions together, and then they’ll take it and run with it once you’ve processed and kind of agreed upon doing it. And then lastly is root level. Like think of a tree route. And these are decisions that only you make. And so that might be included in long term strategy or major financial investments typically. So using a decision tree like this can help clarify roles and reduces confusion. But it also empowers your team to act without waiting on you for everything. All right, so that’s it for today’s episode, and I hope that gave you some clarity on why leaders or leadership teams, I should say, is so important and how to start building one, or at least thinking about it. Remember, the goal isn’t to just grow your practice, it’s to grow in a way that’s sustainable and gives you back your time. By building a leadership team, you’re creating a practice that can thrive without everything falling on your shoulders.

Maureen Werrbach 00:12:51  If you want more support on this, you can go inside the exchange membership where we have tons of resources to help you build a leadership team, train your leaders, and create a scalable practice. If you’re not yet a member. Head over to members.thegrouppracticeexchange.com to join, and you’ll get access to hundreds of masterclasses and trainings in documents just like this. I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Give us five stars on whatever podcast streaming service you use and I’ll see you next week.