Leadership and management may not come naturally to eye health professionals, but are essential to a well-run practice. Mark Overton outlines some practical strategies to help you become more effective in this role.
There are three basic challenges facing health professionals who are in positions of leadership in practices.
- Limited time. Most optometrists or ophthalmologists who own or are responsible for practices have their days filled with patients (hopefully). There might be half an hour when a patient cancels or during lunch.
- Limited knowledge. Most eye health professionals don’t have any formal knowledge or qualifications in management. Leadership and management are separate and distinct areas of professional practice.
- Complexity in business. Eye care practices are complicated creatures. There is a lot going on all the time and the details matter. Keeping a team of staff on top of that is hard.
A quick definition:
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”1
To get the right outcomes we will need a few key things:
Know Yourself and Be Reflective
Every day as managers and leaders, we bring ourselves to the job. We bring who we are as people, our likes and dislikes, our preconceived ideas, the peculiar set of values and predispositions we’ve acquired, our unique personalities, and experience.
But problems can happen when we apply our preconceptions or values to situations at work without understanding what we’re doing – when we tilt one way or the other, not based on what’s best in the circumstances, but on what we tend to prefer. What we prefer is sometimes the right choice, but often it’s not.
One of the important principles of leadership is: “My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe – and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.”2
Understand your weaknesses, strengths, biases, and preferences – and control them – to get the best from your team.
You can be a wonderful optometrist or ophthalmologist and be a really awful leader and manager.
Learn How to Be a Leader and Manager
Leading and managing are defined professional skill sets that need to be learned. You can be a wonderful optometrist or ophthalmologist and be a really awful leader and manager.
There are plenty of courses available that would be suitable for optical professionals to learn about the essentials.
Develop a Personal Support System
You don’t have to do this on your own, and you really shouldn’t. There are people who can help you with just a bit of support or a full back-up service. Most of these people are professionals in this area and can help you get the best from your situation.
Ask for support and advice, and listen to it. A common error for clever people is to overestimate their own capability and knowledge. Don’t do this.
Make Time to Lead and Manage
Health professionals are flat out with patients. You need to set aside time with staff and others to actually be a leader and manager. Ideally, set time aside each day specifically for this function. Don’t put it off or reprioritise. It’s really important.
Don’t let the practice get away from you. Walk around or just sit and watch for a few minutes every day. Have small catch-up meetings. Be present. Have formal minuted meetings, and switch from health professional to ‘executive mode’.
If you are not on top of the practice, it will degrade. The Second Law of Thermodynamics works in optical practices. Leave it alone and it will begin to descend to a state of disorder.
Share the Load
When power is concentrated in one person, there is a chance it may be misused or misdirected, and you may not see potential mistakes. In most optical practices, a practice manager is really important. A trusted employee in this role is a valuable person.
Get Reliable Information
Know how your practice is performing and what everyone is doing. The quality of leadership decisions is heavily dependent on the quality of the information available to make decisions and inform thinking.
Good information will tell you about problems early on and allow you to see opportunities for improvement. It reduces risk and ensures the practice is more organised and focused. It also helps you direct and manage resources to best effect. We all have limited resources, and making the most of them is important.
Be Clear and Consistent
If your people are to achieve the practice’s objectives, they need to understand what those are and what is required of them. Leaders are more credible when they can explain decisions clearly, backed by evidence. When everyone is working from the same reliable information, teams are more likely to understand the practice’s priorities and make consistent decisions. Use different ways of communicating, depending on the message and its importance. For important messages, it can take up to three forms of communication to get the message embedded.
Stay Balanced
There is more to life than work. Almost all bad leaders are workaholics. Delegate. Your job as a leader and manager is to make sure stuff happens. Not to do everything yourself.
Take time out to think and recover. It can be really important as a health professional to have a few minutes with a cup of tea to catch your breath, read the news headlines, and reset for the next few patients. The same applies as a leader. Take a short break and think about your next move.
Establish clear expectations around:
- Working hours,
- Emails and messages outside hours,
- Weekend work,
- Holidays,
- Availability for emergencies, and
- Staff authority and responsibility.
Learn to say no. Leaders often accumulate responsibilities because they are reluctant to disappoint people. Good leadership requires deciding what not to do as much as deciding what you should do.
Sleep, exercise, holidays, time with family and friends, hobbies, and genuine downtime aren’t luxuries. They help maintain the energy and cognitive capacity required for good leadership.
Good practices have good leaders and managers. This doesn’t come naturally to most of us. It needs work, learning, experience, and understanding. Make sure that you are the best that you can be, and your practice will benefit.
Mark Overton BSc MBA is the Founder and Principal at Ideology Consulting. With 35 years of experience working in both public and private business in the health sector, general management, consulting, and professional service roles, he is able to pass on a depth of experience and knowledge to businesses he works with. Visit: ideologyconsulting.com.au.
References
- Quote attributed to Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis by Stephen R Covey in Covey SR. The seven habits of highly effective people: restoring the character ethic. New York: Simon & Schuster; 1989.
- Sutton R. 12 Things good bosses believe. Harvard Business Review. Available at hbr.org/2010/05/12-things-that-good-bosses-bel [accessed Sept 2026].
