text: The problem was that I was expected to be an effective team leader right out of the gate but I had never been taught the basic physician leadership skills to play this role. And I failed—more than once. I adopted a leadership style based on giving orders not because I was hungry for power but because it seemed to work with the clinical actions of diagnosis and treatment. When faced with a clinical challenge, I simply assumed that I needed to come up with the answers (diagnose) and then tell everyone on the team what to do (treat).
  Whenever I met a difficult challenge well—when I made a tough diagnosis or came up with a creative treatment plan for a difficult patient dilemma—my self-esteem went up. I developed a high level of confidence in my abilities. This was good progress, but it only went so far, as I started to believe—falsely—that I was solely responsible for these successes. I failed to recognize that a broader team was clearly involved in designing and implementing any successful patient plan.
  At the time, I couldn't recognize my poor leadership behavior as a human limitation—one to which anyone with some measure of success could fall prey. I believed I was somehow superior simply because I performed my individual role well. As you might imagine, this had significant negative consequences for me. Although I was dedicated to my work and served patients to the best of my abilities, my leadership style led to interpersonal conflicts, which limited my ability to be truly successful in this professional setting. It wasn't until I adopted a more collaborative and team-centered leadership style that I saw a big difference in my overall effectiveness.
  Thomas Edison once said, "I make more mistakes than anyone I know. And eventually I patent them." There are always obstacles between ourselves and the realization of our goals and dreams. How we respond to our failures—how we evaluate a situation, learn from it, and move on—is actually what determines our path to success.