Leaderpreneurship lessons learned

1. Leaderpreneurship Lessons
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA
University of Colorado School of
Medicine and Business School
President and CEO, Society of Physician
Entrepreneurs

2. What is
leaderpreneurship?
Providing vision,
direction and
inspiration to
physician
entrepreneurs

4. Can
empathy be
learned?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrow
er/2021/09/19/empathy-is-the-most-
important-leadership-skill-according-to-
research/?sh=77bedd213dc5

5. Leaderpreneurship development mistakes
1. We try to manage innovation instead of leading innovators
2. We don't select medical students based on their leadership and/or entrepreneurial mindset
3. We don't train the trainers
4. We don't reward leadership or entrepreneurship or create incentives to do it
5. We give a mixed message. One the one hand we want you to innovate and lead. On the other, we want you to conform and not be a
disruptive (in the business sense) physician
6. We confuse management with leadership
7. We don't give students leadership experiential learning and a place to fail
8. We don't have enough physician leaderpreneur role models students can emulate
9. The followers don't trust the leaderpreneurs because they don't get sh$t done and they don't do what they expect followers to do.
10.We don't agree on the definition and intended outcomes of entrepreneurship and innovation.
11.We don't teach how to lead in a time of crisis
12.We assume everyone has the right mindset to be a leaderpreneur

6. Physician
entrepreneurs
are different
• Entrepreneurial mindset supplementing clinical
mindset
• Risk profile
• Generational personas
• Good rebels v bad rebels- the “disruptive
physician”
• Specialty personality
• Different decision making, bedside manner and
technical KSAs
• Varying entrepreneurial competencies
• Culture of conformity v culture of creativity
• Values

7. Healthcare
entrepreneurial
roles
• Technopreneur: drugs, devices, digital
health, care delivery/infrastructure/policy
• Intrapreneur
• Social entrepreneur
• Edupreneur
• Medical practice entrepreneur
• Entrepreneurial financial entrepreneur
• Service provider

8. Lessons
learned
• Know when to hold ‘em, fold ‘em, walk away
or run
• Make it personal but don’t take it personally
• Figure out how to herd cats
• Create a personal brand and build street
cred
• Pick your spot: front, back, from a distance
• Find your blind spots
• Have a personal advisory board
• Relentlessly test your ideas
• Know when to trust your gut
• Don’t let school get in the way of your
education

9. Lessons
learned
• Listen, learn, leave
• Make yourself obsolete as quickly as
possible
• Assume the role the circumstances require:
coach, guide on the side?
• Get rid of bad apples as quickly as possible
• Celebrate the heros (HINT: You are not one
of them)
• Learn crisis management: ACT: acknowledge,
contrition, try to make it right
• You can never communicate too much, only
the wrong ways
• Include leadership on your failure resume
• Run your NFP like a for profit and vice versa