Self-Leadership in Practice:
The Foundation Healthcare Leaders Need in 2026

Transforming Healthcare Coaching Podcast — Episode 90: Self-Leadership in Practice. Co-hosts: Lillian Liang Emlet, MD MS CHSE CPC ELI-MP, and Klaus Grim, PA-C CPC ELI-MP. Published January 5, 2026.

Lillian Liang Emlet: What if 2026 wasn't about doing more, but about being different? What if the best thing you could do for your team this year is to transform yourself first? That's the invitation we're extending today, not another list of resolutions. A framework for actual change. Welcome to episode 90.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Welcome to the Transforming Healthcare Coaching Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, podcast director, Klaus. Happy New Year.

Klaus Grim: Happy New Year.

Lillian Liang Emlet: And if you're new to the show, you've picked the perfect time to join us.

Klaus Grim: And this is episode 90 and we're kicking off what we believe will be our most transformational year yet, and not because we have all the answers, but because we've designed a journey that will help you find yours.

Lillian Liang Emlet: This year, we're organizing episodes around our simple but powerful coaching framework that we call AND. "Awareness, New action and Deliberate practice."

Klaus Grim: And January is our foundation month. We're setting the stages with leadership and wellness fundamentals, and in March we hit a huge milestone. We hit episode 100. But today we're starting with something even more foundational. Lillian, you say it all the time, "You can't lead others where you haven't been willing to go yourself."

Lillian Liang Emlet: That's right. You know, so today we're talking about both sides of that coin. Self-leadership, leading yourself and leadership of others. Because they're really not separable. Let's start with what we mean by self-leadership. You know? So, Klaus, what do we mean as the coaches at Transforming Healthcare Coaching? What do we mean by self-leadership?

Klaus Grim: So when we think about self-leadership, a lot of people will start to think about there's so many books that a people are reaching out to find ways to live healthier lives, to be more reflective. There's always a new resource out there, and I think self-leadership is just kind of going back to the basics. The lifestyle medicine fundamentals. Caring for your sleep, your nutrition, your social connections, avoiding risky behaviors and such. And just remembering how to stay well from the most basic of a forms. What does self-leadership mean to you, Lilly?

Lillian Liang Emlet: So I think self leadership for me means being really intentional in thinking about you have choice in how you think, feel, and act. And it's, to me, I think moving from a concept that we're reacting to the world, to being proactive out there, for example, not allowing your circumstances to decide everything and thinking about where you can manage how you're going to respond to it. I talk a lot as you know about between the stimulus and the response there is the time, the liminal space where you have an opportunity to decide how you will think, feel, and act in that time.

Klaus Grim: Yeah, and I think you know this, this year. For me, is going to be a lot of those micro steps that I can take to simplify, to go back to those basics, as I mentioned. And just find ways that I can make a part of my life that can be a habit, towards just being well in my own leadership, and in my own personal and professional life.

Lillian Liang Emlet: That's true. Really keeping things simple, makes a big difference. You know, for me, I think part of what we work with our clients on is the fact, it's 'self-awareness'. Really understanding and knowing our patterns and our triggers. Then self-regulation, meaning 'how are we going to manage our responses?' Some of us really feel things in our body first. Some people have emotions first. Some people have ruminating thoughts first, and then self-direction, meaning you get choice in terms of what are you going to pick? What are you going to do? That, I think sometimes feels like invisible for some of our clients until you really unpack where those opportunities might lay.

Klaus Grim: Yeah, and you mentioned something so important and it, it is choice and agency that we all have to make changes. And, this is something we talk a lot about with our clients, with organizations, and people in general. You're your own advocate for your own health and if you know, nobody's going to make you and force you. The people will recommend and offer solutions for you to be healthier and be more well. But it comes down to you to say, "Hey, I want change. I want to make positive strides towards my development personally and professionally." That's what we do here as coaches to support that journey and support you. You, this unique individual whose journey is completely different from the next person to make those small intentional steps towards just being happier and more joyful and healthier.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Yeah. Not surprisingly, healthcare leaders are good at telling other people what to do, but struggle to apply it to themselves. And so it's really common for healthcare leaders to seek a coach because they start to realize that you need someone invisible behind you or beside you so that you can achieve those same things. And research actually shows that self-leadership in healthcare for the leaders that do practice self-leadership, there actually is higher resilience, better decision making under pressure and more sustainable performance for the long haul. You know, 'cause when we think about, you know, wellbeing, we love to study the people who are well and thriving for long periods of time. And that's what it shows is actually the self-leadership is the foundational things that need, we need to work on.

Klaus Grim: And Lily, one thing that I think you can relate to is a lot of our leaders, they want their employees, their staff members to be leaders as well In their own lives and in their teams. They're not oftentimes always on the floors with the direct patient care and in the teams and the culture. They're supporting it and making sure it's a thriving environment for patient care and the organization. And so, one thing that leaders can do is the first step is to model it themselves. Modeling the health and wellness. You know, patients, when they look at you, oftentimes they're looking to see if you embody the same things you're preaching, And that honesty and authenticity is, huge. And so if we can model that to our teams we're more likely to get buy-in for people to say, "Hey, maybe I need to start making some changes myself, and maybe that's going to help influence the team in my patient care, in my personal life."

Lillian Liang Emlet: You bring a really good point 'cause I literally just did a workshop yesterday, and I had to point out the reason why I am asking for people to share and to do these particular commitments in public and what the different ideas are for the next micro action because somebody else might be inspired to do the same thing and be the accountability buddy for this and that there's greater success. It's really interesting too now I'm also watching as we role model in public what the. What self-leadership needs to look like and growth that is hopefully will over time change the narrative. Because right now, obviously there's lots of people who don't talk about things, who hide things, who are putting themselves last. And the more that we can talk about these things and point to why you should talk about it, can make it more, available for everyone because you can't role model what you can't see.

Klaus Grim: And it takes practice. I think that's another thing really quick, and I just saw, I think it was some Ted Talk recently and it was, you know, 'how to be a good speaker'. And the speaker was like, "In order to be a good speaker, you've gotta practice. It takes hours and hours and hours. Think of the person in the orchestra. They spent hours and hours and hours to master that skill. Because they wanted it so bad, and now they're performing in front of thousands." And so it's the same thing with what he was mentioning with speaking. It's like if you want to be a good speaker, you have to practice and practice and practice every day, three minutes a day will add up to being a amazing speaker. All of those people who became amazing speakers had the practice. And it's the same thing with practicing something that's completely new and different. In healthcare, oftentimes we don't have the education or we don't have the training that has supported our ongoing personal and professional development. And remembering how to stay well in this very emotional, you know, environment. And it takes practice to really make it happen. It's never going to be a quick fix. It's not like that one vacation you come back and you're totally transformed and you're being well and you're happy on your job. But it does take small intentional steps every day with reflection and oftentimes with guidance to making sure you're consistent and sustainable in it.

Klaus Grim: And so Lillian, you work with physician leaders every day. Where do you see the self-leadership gap showing up most right now?

Lillian Liang Emlet: Yeah, so definitely number one is "I should be able to handle this." There's so much should-ing, like, I should do this, I should do that in healthcare professionals, especially if you have multiple identities and roles, "I should be able to, you know, be a partner or a parent, or volunteer, or you know, like so many things that we do. Generally speaking, I think because of our training, we were trained just to keep pushing through our clinicals. Pushing through, you know, bodily needs, and never pausing to reflect. And the cadence of learning, of pausing and reflecting and then trying again isn't really always often in some clinical training programs. And so there's a lot of the, "I just should be able to do this kind of thing." "They threw me in here so I've gotta be able to make it work." I would say the other main one I see very often is, pushing past people who you have designated in places, your assistants or other team members, to not allow them to make their own decisions or to make decisions on behalf of the group. And instead just to just make a decision on the behalf of the patients. Like the patient's always most important. So meaning prioritizing your clinician hat over the fact that you're a leader of teams. And so those two main things, I think are the two biggest ones that I personally see. What about you?

Klaus Grim: Well, I think you gave a excellent point about the shoulds, And I gave a talk on this not that long ago, about the shoulds, the woulds, the coulds, the needs. We hear these like, "I need to do this." This follows up in wellbeing all the time. When people are starting to make, trying to make wellness changes in their life is they'll say, "I need to do this." Or, "I should be doing this." And those words oftentimes have some form of fear attachment to it, which can sometimes be helpful of like, you may, I need to exercise. That's a New Year goal that I think a lot of people do, and they say, "I need to do it. I need to do it." But it's short lived. It's not sustainable because it's fear based. Most of the time. And then if you should be doing it, there's no real attachment to it. And so if you can shift it to, "I want to do that." And even sometimes it's as simple as saying, like, writing it down. Like, you know, if you realize you're saying, "I should do this, I need this." When it comes to your goals and you shift it and just write, "I want to do this." Sometimes that's enough for you to start to say, "Okay, maybe I can find some joy and happiness in making this come true." So that's one thing. I think another thing is, people lose that sense of 'why' they went into medicine. And I think, that's a huge piece that I think can impact, people's leadership, and self-leadership enjoy in their profession. Because we oftentimes are so, especially leaders putting out fires and doing so many administrative tasks and sometimes not a hundred percent involved in patient care anymore. And it can be distracting and make it really difficult for the remembrance of, "Why you went to medical school?" Or "Why you went to PA school or nursing school?"

Lillian Liang Emlet: I really like your point about though the why, because I think so often people complain about their job and they can't remember why they chose the promotion, it is almost like, if you remember why the intrinsic value. I always tell people 'intrinsically versus extrinsically.' Extrinsic benefits are things like your salary, your benefits, a stability of a job providing for your family. But the intrinsic, if you're intrinsic wise, if those aren't fulfilled along the way by any of your positions, then that's a deeper disconnect. And I think when we tap back into the 'intrinsic why' we're able to kind of right, set the course again. So if someone's listening to us right now and thinking, 'that's totally me.' And so I'm curious, where do you think people need to start? Like, what kinds of things help us get more towards self-leadership Again.

Klaus Grim: I think it's the reflection and I'm guilty of not doing it enough. It's the ability to step back, I think. And it is to remember the why's the importance of 'why you're in your career.' I always tell people, "We, spent so much of our lives at work. And so if there's no meaning behind it, or you, the meaning is distracted, it's important to get back to that. I think when we find that it does bring a sense of joy back to, maybe something that was maybe missing for a while. And it's really that outside in approach and looking like from like a bird's eye view and just seeing the different pieces and remembering that we are shifting and adapting as human beings. Politics are changing, our environment is changing. The people that we have connections with are changing. So it's the things that we're, maybe were once important to us, may not be as important to us anymore. A lot of us are set on our ways and so it's really important to remember that, we can adapt and change as well to be somebody different and, and in a good way. Right? And it really takes intentional, reflection. I think it's always the first step is reflection and that awareness. You know, we talk a lot about awareness. If you're not aware, you know, having a shift is very difficult. And oftentimes people have like a big vision, a big goal, which is great. It's great to have that, but it's very hard to achieve that or get to that when you're not aware of the small little things that could be distracting you from getting there.

Lillian Liang Emlet: I love that it's that whole exercise with the rocks. Big rocks. Medium rocks into the sand. A lot of times it's the sand. We're just like, just sifting through sand the whole time and really forgetting to fit in the big rocks. So for me, I actually think because so many people worry about time productivity and their biggest excuses like, "My time is all already allocated for..." So I think the calendar reveals your actual values and not your stated or wish or should kind of values. And so when you look at your calendar, and I'm thinking like down to like the every 15 minutes, if you literally had a color code, like what does that represent in terms of, you know, how do you spend your time and how does it really reflect who I say I want to become. I think it's important to not only take time to, like you said, do the step back week to week, month to month, but people are a little bit hesitant to actually show me really what is your calendar, reflecting of your value. Some people, some of my clients are like, yeah, here they share screen and we go over it together, but other people are a little bit hesitant because it's actually, if you think about every 15 minutes, like downtime, exercise time. Do you have like gaps where like, "I just doodled and cleaned the house for an hour." I mean, I get, I'm guilty this morning I cleaned the house a little bit. That was actually like, the question is what does that represent and is it in alignment with your values? And what's important to you. And so whenever you're looking for these hidden pockets, because sometimes some of the things people want to do, for example, I hear commonly is I just want to get caught up on my passion project, whether that be knitting or crocheting, or whether that's reading and getting ahead in like a degree that I'm pursuing. Like, where are you going to find the time? And so until you really micro-analyze down every 15 minutes and look at the rainbow of your calendar, 'cause your calendar actually should be a rainbow. It should not be just be like, oh, colored blocked off, allocated for 12 hours away. I mean, even the 12 hours away, you can use time wisely. And so for me, I think it's thinking about 'does my calendar reflect my values?'

Klaus Grim: Yeah, I like that you mentioned time. I think one of the biggest barriers that we have for a lot of our clients who are trying to make shifts in their development for being more well, in a healthier version of themselves. It's like, I don't have time to meet with a coach or a therapist or with somebody who's going to help support my journey. Like, I just don't have time. I go to work, I come home, I have to take care of the kids, or I have to cook or, want to do A, B, or C. And so, one of the things that you mentioned is that I think is incredible is, is that reflection piece of, and I'll be honest with you, I'm guilty of it myself to say the time. I don't have enough time of the day for this. And you really can make time for the things that are important for you. So that's kind of, that should, would, could thing. And if you shift it to 'want'. If you want it to bad enough, you'll want to make time for it. And I've seen that with my clients consistently is that they've shifted that, that need or shoulds to want and they come to coaching sessions and they're reflecting like "I do with my own coach." I do a lot of my reflection with my coach because sometimes it's helpful to say it out loud and when we say it out loud, there's more intention behind making some shifts as a result of that reflection and awareness.

Lillian Liang Emlet: I think that leads us into probably our next point, which is, 'you actually can't manage time, you can really only leverage your energy.' So as energy leadership coaches, we all love talking about energy, and so when we think about even our own personal energy on a day-to-day given basis, there. Are actually biological things that underpin it. And so to get, bring back to like the science side of things, you do have a chronotype. There really are morning larks, midday warriors, and night owls. And so I think you have to be at your best for the deep creative work that you want to do or the learning work that you want to do. And while your work schedule may or may not allow for complete optimization, you need to think about where you want to optimize for the things that fill your cup the most based on your chronotype and your energy and thinking through and experimenting like, experimenting with tiny experiments of like, well, if I just gave myself 30 minutes in my most peak optimal time. For some people, it's really late at night. It's at the end of the day when they've given to everybody else for other people's first thing in the morning. And then for other people it's like, I just need a break. I just need to change things up routine wise. And I'm good with just saying, "My lunch break is going to be my study time, walking time, you know, whatever." So I mean, those are the three main buckets that I see that there are three main chronotypes and three major choices that you can decide to put better alignment for your calendar.

Klaus Grim: I like that. And as energy leadership coaches, I love to think of energy in the way of how it's serving everybody. We talk about oftentimes two domains of energy, catabolic and anabolic energy. So catabolic being that kind of destructive energy. And then we think of anabolic energy being that more constructive energy. And a lot of people, are not as aware of how much catabolic energy that they carry throughout the day. And how, you know, when we're under stress that we have such a significant amount of it. Most of us do at least. And another thing that comes up with energy is, we notoriously with our clients when we first meet them, offer a energy leadership index assessment. And it never shocks me to see that healthcare professionals oftentimes have very high level four energy, which is that caring mindset. Very giving energy level. And we always say that every energy has both, advantages and disadvantages and the disadvantage of level four energy, which I think is probably the number one thing I see for most healthcare professionals is that. We love to give, we love to help people in our lives, but we oftentimes absorb so much energy that it starts to pull us down to the more catabolic energy levels. Right? We feel like a victim. We can get angry, and then it just spirals. Like we keep giving and then we absorb so much of it and just we're, we're not doing well as a result of that.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Such great points. So we've talked a bit about leading yourself. But you know, things that we discuss about leading yourself doesn't stay internal to just you. It really ripples out. And so we're going to now talk a bit about how self-leadership becomes as a foundation for leading others.

Klaus Grim: So Lillian, you often say changing teams one person at a time. How does the self leadership we just discussed actually transition into team transformation?

Lillian Liang Emlet: So just like you pointed out earlier, modeling really is the message. When you role model, how to be different as a leader. Your team actually is watching what you do and says that it's okay to talk about how you cope and deal with being well as a human first yourself, and with that providing... it creates a psychological safety to say that, "Yeah, if it's okay, talk about what's stressing me and unloading that with my team and my colleagues, then. It's okay to be vulnerable and safe and authentic here with my colleagues. And so it really does that first step modeling. And because you're vulnerable as a leader in that position of hierarchy, then you've created a safety. Like, I mean, if the leader can do it, then why wouldn't you? Because you're hierarchically lower than the leader. I think also we often forget that every little conversation, every little micro interactions matter. It's funny, I just remember a really dear colleague of mine, a co-author, a senior mentor, excellent leader in patient safety, wellbeing, truly a leader in the ENT world, Dr. Eibling at my hospital just retired and so I had three hours of sleep post night call showered, and I went back in and I actually I rearranged the podcast recording with you today for this particular retirement party. Because it means so much because that person is so important because he role models exactly what we're talking about. He talks about it, he tells people and lectures to people and crafts, authenticity, safety, friendliness, and every little interaction matters. All the people in the room. People came out of retirement. People who I haven't seen in years. Directors of the service line, the surgical service line, like, people from the operating room. There are people who I haven't seen in forever have come back out of retirement just to wish him well during his retirement. And it's mainly because all of these micro interactions, every conversation that people you work with matters in your team. And so. It goes much further beyond just what the benefits are for you. It really is about creating a new culture for a loving and well organization.

Klaus Grim: Thank you for sharing that. I think those micro moments are such teaching points. And that modeling as you just mentioned. And, one thing that I think has become more important for me recently is psychological safety. And initially it felt like a almost a buzzword or, you know, something that like, "Oh yeah, of course we have psychological safety in healthcare..." but we really don't, I think a lot of times, You have to set it up like every time. You know, there's a meeting or there's an event or something important's coming up, because if you don't have it, you know, it's not as easy for people to speak up and be their authentic selves and, and really provide opinions that oftentimes are necessary for greater awareness even as a leader. We want the input from people so that we know how to shift and adapt and to make a positive environment or culture or whatever it is that we're addressing at that time. So thank you for sharing that. I think psychological safety has been huge in my development, is remembering to keep that in mind, always.

Lillian Liang Emlet: It's funny because in the sim world I live in, we've always, for a long time talked about Dr. Amy Edmondson and all of her work, and so it was really interesting for me now coming to this coaching sphere and see so much again of Dr. Edmondsons', work again about how she talks about that the leader's emotional state is contagious. Literally, your being calm becomes their calm, your anxiety becomes their anxiety. And we know this when we teach leadership skills in running resuscitations or clinical emergencies, in our world. And at the same time, we often forget that it's sort of, even related to nonclinical emergencies, right? Administrative emergencies often fester deeper, longer, have a more destructive force than just dealing with like a cardiac arrest. So I did find that interesting about how do we translate what we know in sim education into clinical leadership and leadership coaching.

Klaus Grim: Love that.

Lillian Liang Emlet: And so Klaus, in your work as a coach, what happens when leaders shift from, "I have all the answers to, I'm going to coach my team to find the answers."

Klaus Grim: Hmm. that's a big coaching concept, right? We help people unlock the answers for themselves as coaches, we never tell people what to do because they're their own unique journey. And I think when leaders start to understand that when you shift from oftentimes telling, which sometimes you have to, that's your job as a leader. Oftentimes to enforce new policies and rules and whatnot for the development of the organization. But when you can get buy-in from people to come up to these answers themselves and truly understand where you're coming from through their own unlocking of that, you're likely to see more, like I said, buy-in and more of those, you know, the shift in the dynamics in the culture as a result of that, I find.

Lillian Liang Emlet: I love that because you raising a question really makes them have ownership again. And I think the other thing in terms of mindset is even though your name may have the word director or chief or manager in it, our job in those positions isn't to solve every single problem. It's to build a team of problem solvers together, the collective. And we often forget that because at the end of the day, you have to obviously report upward and you have a deliverable and you have a return, and you have these other businessy kind of language that you have to execute on. But at the end of the day, when it comes down to all of the directives and all of the changing winds of the healthcare industry, which is, you know, still a business that has a lot of caring in it. When we develop people, then people can develop answers and then from the developed answers, you have innovation, you have care delivery, you have money, you have all of those things. I think this is like probably one of the hidden pieces of the fact that, and which is why many programs are moving to making sure that we teach coaching as a modality of the leadership practice.

Klaus Grim: Yeah, and I think this hits on to what we said earlier too, is that when. You as a leader can use some of these coaching principles with your teams, you're empowering oftentimes your team members to be leaders. To be leaders within their own teams. So that it's creating that thriving environment where you feel like things are actually sticking and people are taking responsibility for their actions. Where it's not feeling like you're constantly having to follow behind in making sure that things are being done. They take ownership of that themselves, right? As leaders mostly do.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Yeah, and there really is a multiplier effect, right? Leaders who get coached. Become more expansive in their thinking. And so you naturally begin to ask yourself more questions. And then when you get additional trainings, many times leaders come to, like, for example, even our program, right? A lot of people come to the get the coaching training just so that they can become better leaders. not because they're going to become professional coaches like ourselves. And then it, there's a ripple effect where basically. The research shows that as it spreads out in your team, individuals who get coached and who begin to sort of have coaching practices within their leadership practice, then improve collaboration, resilience, and coordination amongst different healthcare teams, which then in the end makes the organization stronger.

Klaus Grim: Yeah, I love that. So, Lilly, let's bring this home. What can listeners expect us? They journey with us through 2026.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Yeah, so we're going to talk a lot more, more deliberately about sort of the foundational backend, the philosophies, teachings, underpinnings of why we at Transforming Healthcare Coaching, our model for transformation is the AND model. AND expansive. A for awareness. N for new action. And D for deliberate practice. The majority of people on our coaching team really have long histories and careers, either as clinical preceptors, educators, program directors, and have been developing and mentoring people for a very long time. And obviously some of our people have gone on to become. Directors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and so when we think about how we got people there, it really comes down to this merging and melding of cognitive psychology, positive psychology. Personal development, leadership development. And so our themes for this coming year are going to be around how as leaders, as self leaders, individuals, and also teams, organizations get greater awareness, new action, and deliberate practice to be able to make those skills permanent.

Klaus Grim: I love that and I'm so excited for a lot of the guests that we have coming onto this show It's going to be a good one. And as always, we always like to hear from you guys, our listeners of things that are resonating, things you're learning, things suggestions for us and guests that we, you think would be great for this episode. We would love to try and connect and see if we can build them in because, our goal is always to help you, the healthcare professional and the healthcare leader who's looking to say, "Hey, I want something different in my life. I want some positive changes." And we're here to help you and guide you through that, hopefully through these episodes.

Lillian Liang Emlet: So before we close out, we want you to do one thing. Pick one of anything you heard this episode. Any of the three self-leadership practices we that we discussed and commit to trying something you heard about? Trying just to become more aware and try it this week. And we'd love to hear from you. If you are a healthcare leader who's interested in informing what this podcast looks like, please email Klaus at podcast@transforminghealthcarecoaching.com. Tell us your problems. Tell us what you're seeing out there. Tell us what you want to hear about, so that we can design episodes that fit your needs.

Klaus Grim: here's a challenge, tell someone post it on LinkedIn, text a colleague, or subscribe to our newsletter. Links will be in the description, where we send out key insights from the podcast episode every Tuesday. Accountability really does transform intention into action.

Lillian Liang Emlet: So over next week, we're going to be talking about teams and changing teams one person at a time. And so I'll just leave you with that teaser. Subscribe to our podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, so you don't miss it. And then until then. Lead yourself well so that you can lead others. Happy New Year from Transforming Healthcare Coaching.

Klaus Grim: New Year.