3 ways radiologists can lead from behind, in front and all points between

If you’re a radiologist, you’re a leader. Even if nobody reports to you, you influence your peers, your healthcare colleagues and even those you report up to—and everyone else with whom you cross paths in your line of work. Given this actuality, you would do well to adopt as your own the business-management principle popularly known as “360-degree leadership.”

Three radiologists make the case for doing so, and lay out a plan for beginning the 360-degree journey, in an article published online May 6 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

In introducing their primer, Nupur Verma, MD, and Tan-Lucien Mohammed, MD, of the University of Florida, Gainesville, along with Puneet Bhargava, MD, of the University of Washington in Seattle, state that the concept of leading from the middle of an organization is often poorly understood in radiology.

A common symptom of this is the tendency to overestimate the influence of a formal leadership title.

“Although the opportunities or ability to achieve full leadership potential are not possible for each radiologist,” they write, “the core leadership qualities of the 360-degree leader may be applied by anyone, at any career level, to better manage their team, stay focused on vision and navigate difficult situations.”

Verma and colleagues then encourage radiologists to work on three learnable behaviors common to successful 360-degree leaders in every field.

1. Practice selflessness.

Effective 360-degree leaders put their own personal interests behind those of the organization and its guiding mission and vision, the authors explain. In radiology, this kind of leader “values building teams to achieve the departmental goals of service, patient safety, research and education above personal career achievement, attainment of titles, or direct financial compensation,” they write. “This conscious discernment requires the leader to be free of insecurity and be able to manage his or her ego.”

2. Trust the people you lead.

The authors suggest that true 360-degree leaders must embrace, if not out-and-out celebrate, the inescapable fact that some of the people they lead are more talented and experienced than themselves. Learn to trust team members to perform, which in turn empowers each member to contribute as much as he or she can. “This concept of trust in the ability of those you lead can be exceedingly challenging to implement,” they write, “as for the majority of their education and training radiologists have endeavored to succeed as individuals, and have learned to work diligently toward clearly defined goals, rather than striving toward visions that are more expansive.”

Actions that demonstrate trust—avoiding micromanagement, enabling autonomy and so on—can be initially disenchanting and call for constraint and practice. Here the authors maintain that “the highest value in return is when team members identify the leader’s confidence in them, and this empowers them to perform at their best.”

3. Abstain from bias.

“Bias and office politics should be recognized on your path toward developing as a leader,” the authors write, citing as examples favorable clinical shift assignment for close peers, promotion of a faculty ahead of more deserving peers and promoting one’s own ideas in a group setting over another member’s suggestions.

No matter how innocuous or inadvertent they may seem to leaders, workplace biases “are often painfully transparent to those they are leading,” the authors point out. Such missteps can “undermine the team’s confidence in the leader, reducing the leader’s integrity and authenticity even in the eyes of those who may be benefiting” from the favoritism.

“Cognizance of bias, and resolve to abstain from ‘joining sides,’ is an important part of developing as an effective 360-degree leader,” the authors write. “This trait is demonstrated to those you lead by consistently fair decision making.

Bonus pointer: Watch for ‘defining moments’

Verma, Mohammed and Bhargava close with a consideration of how “defining moments” experienced along the 360-degree journey can be recognized, prepared for and managed.

Such moments include instances of turmoil calling for difficult decision-making. “These moments offer you, the leader, an opportunity to express your trustworthiness, skill and integrity by recognizing that how you execute your actions is just as important as what they are,” the authors write.

Defining moments are often unanticipated, they note. Nonetheless, a successful 360-degree leader can prepare for defining moments “by having already established a foundation of trust, selflessness and immunity from prejudice. Those they lead will then rely on this preexisting behavior to anticipate how their leader will respond to uncertainty or failure.”

“Managing defining moments starts with accepting mistakes, group setbacks, suffering or failure without succumbing to excuses, blame, anger, or frustration,” the authors conclude. “Although human emotions are experienced, the 360-degree leader keeps the focus on the process and the system as a whole and begins planning for improvement.”