The Leaders’ Library, launched in 2019, serves as a closed, asynchronous, pop-up, virtual community discussion of mainstream books which have direct relevance to healthcare clinicians, educators, and leaders. This professional development series is led by Dr. Dina Wallin and features a rotating group of internationally renowned facilitators discussing books with participants on the real-time messaging platform Slack.
We proudly announce the second installment of ALiEM’s career development book club, The Leader’s Library, with Kim Scott’s bestseller Radical Candor [Amazon link].
Your colleague and friend plops down next to you at a meeting. She’s extra excited because she’s going to give an important presentation to hospital administration about her new quality improvement project, and beams a bright smile at you. She has a huge chunk of spinach between her teeth. What do you do? You could shout, “Hey, loser, get that spinach outta your teeth!” in front of the whole group… or you could encourage her to go ahead and give the presentation, telling her she’s going to do a great job… or you could avoid eye contact altogether… or you could just TELL her discreetly, empowering her to do the best job she can.
In April 2019, a group of intrepid readers embarked on an adventure together: the debut session of The Leader’s Library, ALiEM’s new career development book club. Learners and instructors from around the world read and discussed Dr. Brené Brown’s newest book, Dare to Lead, on a 5 day journey via Slack. Each day had its own theme (Rumbling with Vulnerability, Values, Empathy and Shame, Learning to Rise, and Toolkit), and the asynchronous discussion was robust. A day-by-day breakdown of our conversation, along with tangible takeaways and recommendations for further reading, is summarized below.
We proudly introduce ALiEM’s newest series, The Leader’s Library, with Dr. Brené Brown’s newest book, Dare to Lead!
Have you ever gotten to work with someone who just “got it?” Someone who inspires greatness in all people with whom s/he worked, seemingly effortlessly, all the while maintaining humility and approachability? What about the converse– have you ever worked with someone who just seems out of touch with the rest of the team, failing to unite the group under a common goal, leaving the team members feeling unheard and voiceless? Unfortunately, we’ve all probably worked more with folks from the latter category than the former, and this can lead us to believe that good leadership is a mysterious, innate quality that some people are lucky enough to have, while the rest of us are stuck bumbling through our days, just trying to avoid catastrophic mistakes.