1. University of Houston - Clear Lake
Physician Practice Management
HADM 3351 Spring 2016
The Importance of Emotional Intelligence
in Physician Practice Management
By: Tristann Trujillo
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The Importance of Emotional Intelligence
in Physician Practice Management
Physician practice managers must possess many leadership skills to successfully manage
a practice. Such leadership skills may consist of: being a good communicator, being proactive,
being a problem solver or critical thinker, having a strong business acumen, and many other
general traits. While all of these are very important in practice management, there is one
leadership skill that distinguishes top performers. According the exploratory research paper
“Leadership Skills Can Make or Break a Medical Practice,” emotional intelligence skills are
what provide the backbone to strong management. But, what exactly are these skills and why are
they so important? Here throughout, I will discuss the skills of emotional intelligence, in addition
to why these skills are important, and how these skills will allow for a practice manager to have a
successful organization.
Thus far, we have discussed emotional intelligence, but what exactly does that mean? In
general, emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the
emotions of others. The exploratory research paper I read, defines it as “managing with heart,”
which I believe to be a great short explanation. Although, this seems to be rather simplistic,
emotional intelligence is composed of many skills, hints the phrase “emotional intelligence
skills.” The first skill I will discuss is self-awareness. Self-awareness is defined as “the ability to
recognize and understand your moods, emotions, and drives, as well as their effect on others.”
Self-awareness is important for a manager, because when you are self-aware you have a firm
grasp on your abilities, who you are, and what your values, beliefs, and goals are. By having this
understanding of one’s self, allows one to be confident and consistent in their ways of
management and leading.
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Personally for me, possessing the skill of self-awareness allows for me to assess myself
and my emotions in certain situations. If I don’t feel like something is morally right or consistent
with my values, beliefs, and goals, then I am able to recognize that and redirect my path.
Because being self-aware means having a high level of self-confidence, employees can respect
and trust you more. Think about it like this, if you had no idea who you are in terms of what you
value and what your goals are, then you have no sense of direction and appear to be lost. How
can you expect your employees to feel confident in following you? Self-awareness will allow for
a practice manager to have a successful organization because by knowing your goals, you have
an internal road map, you have a vision, and know how to lead in a way to achieve that vision,
and ultimately, your employees with trust your direction.
The second skill of discussion is self-regulation, which is define as “the ability to control
or redirect disruptive impulses and moods.” This is extremely important, because it means
having the ability to think before you act. An individual who cannot self-regulate is someone
who wears their emotions on their sleeve. Think of how unprofessional this is in the work
environment. As a leader, your employees expect you to be cool, calm, collected, and composed
during times of chaos or highly stressful situations. If you show any negative emotions,
employees lose trust in your ability to lead. Furthermore, having the ability to self-regulate,
means being a non-defensive active listener, which is important for the success of an
organization. If employees feel like they cannot come to you because of your defensiveness, you
miss out on building close relationships with them. Employees want to feel like they are
understood, and that their concerns will not be dismissed because you as a manager only see one
sided. Additionally, having close and positive relationships with your employees sets the climate
of your organization. You want your employees to feel like they can come to you and that they
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are not working in an environment where their innovative ideas, thoughts, or opinions don’t
matter.
The third skill of discussion is motivation, which is defined has “the passion for working
for reasons that go beyond money or status.” Motivated individuals are people who have a good
work ethic and only want to see success, growth, and efficiency in their work environment. This
is important, because it means that you are a dedicated hard worker and can be expected to
overcome setback or failures. Motivated individuals are those who bounce back. In the face of
hard times, they are resilient, and will keep working to achieve a desired end result. Motivation
is important for the success of an organization, because without it, you as a manager are setting
the example that giving up or settling for mediocre is okay. Lack of motivation will ultimately
effect the culture of your organization. Employees will lose sight of expectations, and think that
it is okay to be less than their best.
The fourth skill of discussion is empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share
feelings of other people. It can be thought of as feeling into what they feel. If someone has
emotional empathy they can pick up on other people's emotions and have an appropriate feeling
in response. Having empathy is important because it allows you have a healthy cognitive
understanding of your employees, which brings about effective communication. Having empathy
also sets the climate of an organization. The climate being that it feels comfortable for employees
in the sense that they are understood when expressing themselves. Having a poor climate causes
for a low employee satisfaction level, and when employees are not satisfied, this shows up in
their work, which ultimately effects patient experience and patient satisfaction.
The fifth and final skill of discussion is social skills. This may seem like a simple, general
skill that isn’t a big deal, but it is actually of great importance. When considering the importance
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of social skills, think about this; do effective managers get their results through people? The
answer is yes. Because manager get their results through people, they must have the social skills
to build close and harmonious relationships within the work environment. A manager’s social
skills will determine the ways in which they lead or the leadership style they use. Leadership
styles consist of the following: Authoritative, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, Coaching,
and Coercive. Coercive style of leadership is the least effective, and often highly negative.
Managers with the Coercive style of leadership possess poor social skills, simply because they
demand immediate compliance no matter what the case may be. These type of leaders are known
as the “my way or the high way” type of leaders, which creates a negative climate for employees.
Employees will feel that they have lost their voice and that there is no flexibility in the work
place, which again, creates low employee satisfaction levels, and if workers are not happy
chances are patients are not happy.
All other leadership styles have a positive impact on the climate of an organization.
Coaching leadership style, being one of the most highly positive leadership styles, creates a very
positive and motivational climate, because rather than demanding compliance you are working
side by side to with your employees to achieve a desired goal. It is stated in the exploratory
research paper that, “employees want to know their practice manager cares about their
performance; employees want to know what is expected of them and how it fits into the vision of
the practice.” The coaching leadership style allows for this to happen. By coaching and giving
feedback to your employees, they will feel that you care about their success in addition to having
a greater understanding of what you expect from them.
In conclusion, we know that emotional intelligence skills consist of: Self-awareness, self-
regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. With these skills, practice managers are able
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to be more effective leaders, because they are creating an environment with a positive climate
and culture. Additionally, by creating an environment with a positive climate and culture,
employees are satisfied and offering great customer service, which means patients will have a
positive patient experience. After all, customer satisfaction is of the utmost importance.
