Healthcare Leadership Excellence

In this episode, I sit down with Lon Hecht, CEO of Care2You, to discuss what it takes to lead innovation in healthcare while staying grounded in humility, ethics, and service. Drawing on nearly 30 years of experience across pharmaceuticals, medical devices, healthcare services, and executive leadership, Lon shares lessons from leading one of healthcare's most innovative care delivery models....

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Deborah Kozik, pediatric cardiac surgeon and bioethics expert, alongside returning guest Dr. Jason Kuhl, Chief Medical Officer and family physician, to explore the ethical challenges healthcare leaders face when there are no clear or easy answers. We discuss how clinicians balance patient care, family wishes, professional judgment, and organizational realities...

For this special 200th episode of the Healthcare Leadership Excellence Podcast, I welcome back Dr. Britt Berrett, Managing Director of the Healthcare Leadership Program at Brigham Young University and one of the earliest guests on the podcast. Over the past several years, Dr. Berrett’s insights on leadership, culture, and organizational transformation have continued to shape how I think about heal...

In this episode, I welcome back Dr. Jason Kuhl, Chief Medical Officer at Providence Medford Medical Center, for a conversation about conflict, communication, and leadership. Using a set of conflict-resolution cards created by mediator Kimberly Best, we explore practical ways leaders can navigate difficult conversations more effectively. We begin with the idea of choosing generous assumptions and w...

In this episode, I sit down with Tara Austraat-Churik, a healthcare and life sciences leader whose career has spanned consulting, pharmaceuticals, clinical research, AI, and organizational transformation. We discuss the importance of critical thinking in leadership and why many organizations spend too much time solving symptoms instead of root causes. Tara shares practical approaches for defining...

In this episode, I sit down again with my longtime mentor and friend, Jay Youell. Jay was actually the very first guest on this podcast, and after nearly 200 episodes, I wanted to return to someone who had a tremendous influence on both my leadership and my life. We talk about integrity, trust, listening, and the importance of having a moral compass. Jay reflects on lessons from his father, how hi...

In this episode, I sit down again with Dr. Jason Kuhl to talk through one of the most important leadership skills: how to handle conflict when the stakes are high. We discuss why tough conversations often go sideways, especially when people feel rushed, defensive, or unheard. Dr. Kuhl and I talk about the need to slow the process down, name the tension in the room, and create enough safety for peo...

In this episode, I continue my conversation with Dr. Barry Davis, physician, prevention scientist, and author of The Preventioneers. Dr. Davis shares more of the stories behind the people who recognized preventable harm and pushed through enormous resistance to create change. We begin by discussing auto safety and the doctors who first connected the injuries they were seeing in hospitals to the ne...

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Barry R. Davis, physician, prevention scientist, and author of The Preventioneers. Dr. Davis has spent decades studying how problems develop and what leaders can do before those problems become disasters. We talk about why most major failures begin with smaller warning signs that people either miss or ignore. Dr. Davis explains the process of recognizing harm,...

In this episode, I sit down with Stevenson Carlebach, a faculty member with Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, to talk about what’s really happening when people resist. We begin with his path from theater into negotiation work. What stands out is how closely those worlds connect, both are about understanding behavior and how people respond under pressure. A core idea we explore is resistance. Steve...

In this episode, I sit down again with Dr. Jason Kuhl, Chief Medical Officer at Providence Medford Medical Center and a returning voice on the podcast. Our conversation centers on real-world scenarios, situations leaders face every day, and how to navigate them with judgment, awareness, and discipline. We begin with a simple but powerful idea: being right is not the same as being effective. Dr. Ku...

In this episode, I sit down again with Dr. Jason Kuhl, Chief Medical Officer at Providence Medford Medical Center. Every time we talk, we get into what leadership really looks like when things are hard. We begin with a reflection Dr. Kuhl shared with his team, drawn from Forged in Crisis. The stories of Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Shackleton, Frederick Douglass, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rachel Carson...

In this episode, I sit down with Ed Speedling, Principal and Executive Advisor at ES Healthcare Consulting. Ed brings a unique blend of clinical experience and senior leadership, giving him a practical perspective on a topic many leaders avoid: mental health in the workplace. Ed began his career working directly with children and families, and that experience continues to shape how he approaches l...

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. S. Irfan Ali, CEO of Pioneer Medical Group, whose journey from humble beginnings to leading multiple healthcare organizations offers a grounded and thoughtful view of leadership. We begin with his story, coming to the United States as a trained physician but working jobs like carpet cleaning and pizza delivery while rebuilding his path. Dr. Ali shares how he st...

In this episode, I sit down with Christy Pretzinger, founder of WG Content and The Better Leader Project. Christy has spent more than two decades in healthcare, but her real focus is on helping leaders create environments where people can thrive. We begin with a common tension in leadership: do culture and soft skills really matter, or do people just need to do their jobs? Christy makes the case t...

In this episode, I sit down with Susan Inouye, a leadership coach who has worked with over 600 companies across 40 industries. Susan brings a unique perspective shaped by her early career in film and her focus on helping people become the best version of themselves. We begin with a challenge many leaders face today: working effectively across generations. Susan explains that while younger employee...

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Katherine Meese, bestselling author of Gen Fluence: How to Lead a Multi-Generational Workforce. With a background in organizational behavior, healthcare research, and leadership development, Dr. Meese brings both research and practical insight to one of the biggest challenges facing leaders today: how to lead well across generations. We talk about the reality o...

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Sarah Smith, a physician from Australia and The Charting Coach for Physicians and Clinicians. Dr. Smith has practiced medicine in both Australia and Canada and has experienced firsthand the growing administrative burden that many physicians face. After years of long evenings and weekends spent finishing charts, Dr. Smith began asking a simple but powerful quest...

In this episode, I sit down with Cary Sparrow, Founder and CEO of WageScape and a former nuclear submarine officer. Cary brings a unique blend of technical thinking, leadership experience, and insight into today’s labor market. We begin with a challenge many organizations face: hiring people who actually stay. Cary explains that leaders often focus heavily on technical experience in interviews whi...

In this episode, I sit down with President Cameron Martin of Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions. We first connected at a healthcare leadership conference at Brigham Young University, and after one conversation I knew I wanted him on the show. President Martin shares the story behind Rocky Mountain University and the vision that built it. We talk about the difference between training g...

In this episode, I sit down again with Dr. Kuhl, Chief Medical Officer at Providence Medford and a returning guest on the podcast. Every time we talk, the conversation leads to thoughtful insights about leadership and the realities of healthcare. We begin with a story from Dr. Kuhl’s early neuroscience research—what he calls “life in the rat lab.” After months of failed experiments, the breakthrou...

In this episode, I talk with Radhika Dutt, MIT-educated engineer, startup founder, and author of Radical Product Thinking, about how leaders solve complex problems by changing the way they think, not just the way they act. She shares lessons from her early startup years and the “product diseases” that trap teams into chasing big logos, funding, and metrics instead of meaningful outcomes. Radhika r...

In this episode, I sit down with someone I genuinely admire, Rick Burris, founder of Leaders Fuel and author of Leaders Fuel Daily. Rick and I go back several years, and every time we talk, I walk away sharper. This conversation centers around something deceptively simple: questions. Rick shares how reflective questions became the foundation of his work. Not as clever prompts, but as tools for cla...

In this episode, I sit down again with my friend and what may soon be our “periodic co-host,” Dr. Rob Orman. Rob is a physician, coach, and host of the Stimulus Podcast, and he works extensively with physicians facing burnout, behavioral challenges, and high-stakes pressure. We focus on one central idea: how to expand the space between stimulus and response. So many talented clinicians and leaders...

In this episode, I sit down with Lee Angus, President of Medi Leadership, a firm that has spent the last 25 years coaching healthcare executives in one of the most complex leadership environments in the world. Lee’s journey is not a straight line. With a master’s in accountancy from Brigham Young University, he began at Deloitte auditing and implementing SAP systems, watching firsthand how leaders...