Energy Leadership Index for Healthcare Professionals: Transform Your Performance and Wellbeing

In the demanding world of healthcare, professionals often find themselves navigating high-stress environments that can drain their energy and impact both their performance and wellbeing. What if there was a tool that could help healthcare professionals understand their energy patterns, identify what’s draining them, and discover ways to shift into more productive and fulfilling states? That’s exactly what the Energy Leadership Index (ELI) assessment offers.

What is the Energy Leadership Index for Healthcare Professionals?

The Energy Leadership Index is a unique assessment that measures how individuals show up energetically in their lives, both during normal circumstances and under stress. Unlike personality assessments that categorize people into fixed types, the ELI reveals your current energy patterns—patterns that can be shifted and changed once you become aware of them.

“The energy leadership assessment lets us see where our clients are at in terms of the energy that’s working for them and the energy that’s not working for them, that’s straining them,” explains Gillian Faith, a coach with experience in rehabilitation services and HR management. “We talk about anabolic and catabolic energy.”

But what exactly do these terms mean in the context of healthcare work?

Understanding Anabolic vs. Catabolic Energy

The ELI framework identifies seven distinct energy levels, with the first two levels considered “catabolic” (energy-draining) and levels three through seven considered “anabolic” (energy-building):

• Level 1: Victim energy—feeling powerless, trapped, or defeated
• Level 2: Conflict energy—anger, frustration, and blame
• Level 3: Responsibility energy—taking ownership and seeking solutions
• Level 4: Care energy—supporting and helping others
• Level 5: Reconciliation energy—finding opportunity and multiple perspectives
• Level 6: Intuitive energy—creative synthesis and wisdom
• Level 7: Absolute passion energy—complete non-judgment and oneness

For healthcare professionals, understanding these energy levels provides insight into reactions to various workplace situations—from difficult patients to administrative challenges to team dynamics.

Why the Energy Leadership Index Matters for Healthcare Professionals

Healthcare work naturally exposes professionals to high-stress situations, emotional demands, and systemic challenges. The Energy Leadership Index for healthcare professionals offers several specific benefits:

1. Reveals How You Respond Under Stress

One of the most valuable aspects of the ELI is that it shows not just how you operate on a typical day, but how your energy shifts under stress.

“The energy leadership assessment lets us see how somebody shows up and performs on a good day and also under stress,” Gillian explains.

For healthcare professionals who regularly encounter high-pressure situations, this insight is particularly valuable. It reveals potential stress responses that might be hampering effectiveness during critical moments.

2. Addresses the Catabolic Nature of Healthcare Environments

“Healthcare itself is a very catabolic industry, often with the level one, two and often in most workplaces, it’s a level two energy,” notes Dr. Lillian Liang Emlet, founder of Transforming Healthcare Coaching. “And so it’s no wonder that as you like energy being in like energy that you end up being in those environments.”

This recognition—that healthcare environments often operate at catabolic energy levels—helps professionals understand why they might feel drained at work, even when they’re passionate about patient care.

3. Empowers Choice Even in Challenging Environments

Perhaps most importantly, the Energy Leadership Index helps healthcare professionals recognize that they have choices about their energy, regardless of their environment.

“What’s nice about the ELI assessment for healthcare professionals is to realize that you actually can choose, even in those catabolic places, to move to a more anabolic place to actually see opportunities, to find ways to caregive, and to actually survive the status quo,” Dr. Emlet explains.

This sense of agency can be transformative for healthcare workers who often feel at the mercy of systems beyond their control.

Real-World Impact of the Energy Leadership Index for Healthcare Professionals

The coaches at Transforming Healthcare Coaching have seen remarkable transformations when healthcare professionals gain awareness of their energy patterns:

From Exhaustion to Engagement

Amy Bubser, a life transition and career coach, shares a powerful example: “I’m working with someone now who was feeling very drained, very low vitality, not motivated at all. We’re on session, I think, number four. And all of a sudden it comes out, ‘Wait a minute, I’m getting up early every day. I’m going to the gym. I’m actually being motivated in things that aren’t even related to my job, but in all areas of my life.'”

This ripple effect—where energy shifts in one area positively impact other aspects of life—is a common outcome of working with the ELI.

Breaking Free from Victim Mode in Healthcare Systems

Another example comes from a healthcare professional working in a seemingly unsupportive environment:

“She was getting so frustrated… it was really dragging her energy down,” Amy shares. “After doing the energy assessment, she started realizing that she was coming to helping people with like a 4-1 combination. Actually with part 2, she was so angry about what was going on… and also feeling like she had no choice, level one. And yet at the same time, she’s trying to help.”

This combination of caring energy (level 4) mixed with victim energy (level 1) and anger energy (level 2) was exhausting her. With awareness from the ELI, “she was able to see she had other choices and also actually she helped cause some changes in her department because she started looking at it more clearly.”

Navigating Healthcare Politics

Gillian shares an example of a healthcare executive with “a lot of level two energy. And the level two energy was coming from the politics and the leadership and then the organization. And I think this person did not realize the impact that it was having on them both in the professional and their personal life.”

Through coaching informed by the ELI, this executive found ways to “either stay in it or figure out a way to approach it in a different way so that going to work every day was more fulfilling, more satisfying and less stressful.”

How the ELI Assessment Process Works for Healthcare Professionals

If you’re considering the Energy Leadership Index for yourself or your healthcare team, here’s what to expect:

1. Complete the Online Assessment

The process begins with an online assessment that takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. The questions examine how you perceive and approach various aspects of your life and work.

2. Participate in a Debriefing Session

“We spend an hour and a half roughly debriefing you on your unique energy dynamics,” explains Klaus Grim, an emergency medicine physician assistant and coach. “You’ll be surprised what comes up for you when we debrief with you on the energy levels and how they’re showing up for you.”

This debriefing is a conversation, not a one-way presentation of results. It’s an opportunity to explore your patterns with guidance from a coach who understands healthcare contexts.

3. Gain Personalized Insights

The debriefing connects your energy patterns to specific situations in your healthcare work and personal life. As Klaus notes, “For you, it could be, we’re talking about level four energy, and you’re realizing that I give too much to others, and I don’t give enough to myself, and that could be reflective at work, it could be reflective at home.”

4. Develop Strategies for Energy Shifts

Based on your unique profile and goals, your coach will help you identify specific strategies to shift your energy when needed. For example, if you tend to slip into victim mode (level 1) when faced with administrative challenges, you’ll learn techniques to move into more solution-focused energy (level 3) in those situations.

The Energy Leadership Index for Healthcare Teams

While individual assessments provide powerful insights, the ELI can be particularly transformative when used with healthcare teams:

Creating a Common Language

“We do these one on one individually and also we can do team and group ELI debriefings,” explains Dr. Emlet. “Just having the shared experience to see the commonalities, especially in the team that has been partially hired in the pandemic that may not have the same pre-existing relationships… it’s actually really important to have a shared common language and common mission together.”

Building Psychological Safety Through Vulnerability

Gillian highlights another team benefit: “When you do any kind of exercise like this, but especially with the ELI, it allows people the opportunity to be more vulnerable. And when we’re more vulnerable, there’s a shared understanding and it helps to deepen relationships and strengthen relationships.”

This vulnerability and understanding is particularly valuable in healthcare settings where team cohesion can directly impact patient outcomes.

Informing Leadership Approaches

For healthcare leaders, team ELI insights can guide more effective leadership strategies. As Dr. Emlet notes, “It lays the foundation for the leader to actually be more effective because you begin to sort of see, ‘Oh these are the things that are going to be unsavory for half of the group.’ And that means we might want to structure things differently.”

Getting Started with the Energy Leadership Index

If you’re intrigued by the potential of the Energy Leadership Index for healthcare professionals, here are ways to explore further:

Individual Assessment

Many coaching relationships begin with the ELI assessment, which provides a foundation for subsequent coaching. However, you can also take the assessment as a standalone experience. As Dr. Emlet mentions, “We do offer those as a standalone. Usually it’s incorporated into our group coaching packages as a benefit. However, there are some individuals who are just curious and want to just try it on its own.”

Team or Department Assessment

For healthcare leaders looking to enhance team dynamics and performance, a group ELI assessment can provide valuable insights. These assessments can be tailored to address specific challenges your team is facing.

Organizational Implementation

For larger healthcare organizations, implementing the ELI across multiple departments can create a shared language and approach to energy management. As Amy notes, this can help leadership understand “how people are experiencing their days at work… so when they can also see the tangible results of how the business is being set up from a higher level and how that can impact the people and their performance and also their ability to sustain.”

The Power of Awareness in Healthcare Energy Management

The thread running through all these applications is the transformative power of awareness. As Gillian emphasizes, “The biggest thing that stands out for me having had this conversation is how powerful creating awareness is. And by doing the ELI either on an individual or a group basis, we are helping clients build awareness and then that gives them the power to look at different options and make better choices.”

For healthcare professionals navigating challenging environments, this awareness and resultant choice can be the difference between burnout and sustainable engagement, between feeling victimized by the system and finding agency within it.

The Energy Leadership Index for healthcare professionals offers a unique lens for understanding your energy dynamics and a pathway to more effective, fulfilling, and sustainable healthcare work—for individuals, teams, and organizations.

To learn more about the Energy Leadership Index assessment or to explore how it might benefit you or your healthcare team, book a free discovery call with one of our coaches who understand the unique pressures of healthcare—because they’ve lived it too. No obligation, just support from someone who’s been in your shoes.

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