Leading a health care organization today feels a bit like conducting an orchestra where half the musicians are playing from different sheet music. You've hired talented professionals, invested in their development, and created supportive environments. Yet something isn't quite clicking – and you're feeling it in your operational rhythms, team dynamics, and, ultimately, in patient care.

As I work with health care leaders across Canada, I hear a consistent theme: our newest professionals arrive with exceptional clinical skills but struggle with the full symphony of modern health care delivery. Many of these new professionals are underprepared for the administrative and organizational aspects of their roles.

At our Reimagining Health Care Leadership event, 62.9% of those polled responded negatively to the statement, “We are adequately preparing future health care professionals for the realities of work.”

Why does this matter to you as a leader? Because every time a talented professiona...

In my work advising health care leaders across Canada, I've noticed that you excel at managing complexity. Whether you're leading a teaching hospital, running a regulatory college, directing a professional association, or educating our future health professionals, you've mastered the art of juggling competing priorities while maintaining high standards of care and professionalism.

But here's a question that often emerges: How can you expand how you see yourself to change the way you lead?

If this question makes you slightly uncomfortable, you're not alone. I've observed that as leaders in health care education, regulation, and practice, you're trained to focus on others - patients, students, professionals, and organizational outcomes. Self-reflection often takes a back seat to the pressing demands of your roles.

Why This Question is Particularly Challenging for Health Care Leaders

Through my advisory work, I've identified several unique challenges health care leaders face when i...

In this video from our Reimagining Health Care Leadership event, Andrew Young, former Executive Director of Outward Bound Canada and current Executive Director of Georgian Bay Land Trust, shares his journey of discovering the transformative power of outdoor experiences, starting from a pivotal five-day outdoor education trip in grade five.

Andrew recounts his work at a community health centre in Ottawa, where outdoor activities helped mend relationships between young people and police. He also discusses his role at the Diabetes Canada, where outdoor camps fostered strong bonds between healthcare professionals and children.

Andrew emphasizes the potential of outdoor activities to level the playing field, build authentic relationships, and enhance leadership. He advocates for integrating novel outdoor experiences into professional practices to foster genuine connections.

You see it every day. That look in your emergency department nurse's eyes after another double shift. The resignation in your faculty member’s voice as they tell you they're scaling back their class load. The unexpected departure email from that promising young social worker you were certain would grow with your organization.

As a leader, you're carrying more than just organizational responsibilities. You're carrying the weight of watching the people you lead - talented, dedicated professionals who've committed their lives to health care - slowly burning out.

The reality is stark. Burnout rates have skyrocketed across all health care professions since the pandemic began. But while COVID-19 may have been the match, the kindling was already there.

Why are we here? Several factors have created this perfect storm:

• Rising patient complexity requiring more intense care coordination
• Administrative burdens that pull professionals away from direct care or teaching
• Systems designed fo...

Whether you're leading a health authority, running a regulatory college, or directing a school filled with future health care professionals, you're often caught between the relentless pressure for innovation and the very real constraints of professional standards, patient safety, and regulatory requirements. I see this tension in every strategic planning session I facilitate.

"I know we need to innovate, but..." This is how many conversations start when I work with health care leaders. 

And you know what? That hesitation is completely valid. Here's why:

• Professional cultures prioritize stability and proven approaches
• Patient safety and quality standards require careful validation
• Regulatory frameworks can seem to reward iteration over innovation
• Resource constraints make experimentation feel risky
• Multiple stakeholder interests need careful balancing

When asked to explain the difference between iteration and innovation, I frequently use a well-known piece of technology...

Exploring how creative practices reshape personal and cultural identity post-service through visual arts.

In this video from our Reimagining Health Care Leadership event, Dawson Wambolt, a psychologist who specializes in working with veterans with PTSD, discusses his vocational veterans’ rehabilitation program focused on training them in the visual arts. 

He shares his own military background, including the impact of losing colleagues and his subsequent struggles with mental health and career direction. After leaving the military, he transitioned to working with troubled youth and eventually pursued a career in psychology. 

With funding from the True Patriot Love Foundation, he developed a six-week intensive arts program, partnering with artist and veteran Jessica Wiebe and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 

The program saw significant improvements in psychological well-being and personal growth among participants, with several veterans pursuing further education and even ...

Making others see the need for change when they either can't or won't is a significant obstacle for many executives. In this episode of Toughest Call, Luc Mongeau, President and CEO of eSolutions Furniture, talks about a tough call he made in a previous leadership role: tackling a massive strategic shift that few others saw the need for.

Weeks into his position as President of Mars Canada, Luc recognized several early indicators that the company was slipping into decline. But others didn't see the situation the same way and were resistant to change. What Luc shares in this episode is a masterclass on how to lead significant organizational change.

Luc Mongeau: We had a couple of tough discussions with customers where we were able to pass pricing, and the margin started going up. But most importantly, was the energy in the building, the way people were relating to each other.

Chaz Thorne: Welcome back, or welcome to Toughest Call, a podcast for organizational leaders where we h...

‘Mission drift’ is a common affliction in many organizations.

It usually starts at the top and trickles down as you lose the plot of the story you and your colleagues are collectively attempting to tell about what your organization exists to do.

In his episode of the Toughest Call podcast, Rob Angel, the creator of Pictionary, talks about how staying on mission resulted in him and his partners turning down a lucrative licensing deal.

They defined their mission as “scaling the energy and fun of Pictionary” and viewed the offer in front of them as unlikely to contribute to that focus.

Given the massive dollars involved and that he was assembling the games by hand in a tiny Seattle apartment at the time, it was not easy to walk away. Though Pictionary would ultimately sell tens of millions of copies around the globe, its commercial success was not a given at the time. When faced with difficult decisions, staying ‘on mission’ is often incredibly difficult in the moment.

A four-step pr...

How can organizational leaders prevent mission drift? In this episode of Toughest Call, Rob Angel, Creator of Pictionary, talks about how staying on mission resulted in him and his partners turning down a lucrative licensing deal.

Rob originally dreamed up what would become one of the best-selling board games of all time four decades ago. The demand on the small business they created to publish the game in 1985 grew rapidly. Rob was tired of eating ramen noodles and assembling games by hand in his tiny apartment in Seattle, so they started to explore licensing to a larger games company. And after their first candidate didn't work out, they found themselves presented with an even larger opportunity.

But along with the big bucks came a big sacrifice. What Rob ultimately faced with this extremely lucrative deal was something many organizational leaders confront: How do I ensure that I'm staying true to our mission?

Rob Angel: I don't think we said a word, the three of us. We all...

A leap is required whenever you start any new project, initiative, or business; you can’t possibly know everything before diving in. However, there are some simple ways to “look before you leap” to spot potential hazards with a small amount of upfront planning.

In 2010, I first discovered the concept and value of planning on a single page through the book “Business Model Generation” by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. It was in this book that the authors introduced the now well-known Business Model Canvas. 

Unlike typical text-heavy and overly tedious business plans, the Business Model Canvas represents a quick, thoughtful, and visual way to get the entire vision of a business on a single page. These features make the creation of a canvas a lot of fun. Whereas the same can seldom be said about the creation of a typical business plan.

The canvas consists of nine elements that allow you to quickly get an overview of what a business or initiative requires to succeed.

Like all good p...