As a clinic owner, your days are often a whirlwind of patient care, administrative tasks, and the constant pressure to keep your diary full. However, there is a silent drain on your energy and your bottom line that you might not have fully addressed yet: tolerance. Whether you are a physiotherapist, osteopath, or chiropractor, the success of your practice is inextricably linked to your leadership. If you are tolerating behaviours or performance levels that do not align with your vision, you are effectively capping your own potential.
In the latest episode of the Treat Your Business podcast, I sat down with Nicola, our COO at Thrive, to discuss the uncomfortable but essential topic of what we tolerate in our businesses. We explored why leadership can feel so triggering for health professionals and how to shift your mindset from a frustrated practitioner to a confident CEO.
The Trap of Being Too Nice
Many clinic owners in the UK come from a background of care and empathy. This is your greatest strength when treating patients, but it can become a significant weakness when managing a team. There is a common tendency to swing between two extremes: the dictatorial style often seen in old-school healthcare environments or the overly permissive style where you prioritise being liked over being respected.
Avoidance often masquerades as empathy. You might tell yourself that you are being understanding of a team member’s personal situation or that you do not want to cause conflict. In reality, by avoiding a difficult conversation, you are allowing a standard to drop. This does not just affect the individual involved; it affects the morale of your entire team and the quality of care provided to your patients.
The Sign You Have Tolerated Something Too Long
There is one very simple litmus test to determine if you are tolerating something that is holding your clinic back: are you still talking about the same person or the same problem that you were three months ago? If you find yourself repeatedly venting to your partner, your coach, or your business manager about a specific staff member’s behaviour, you have already tolerated it for too long.
Leadership is about making decisions. When you allow a problem to linger, it drains your mental energy and creates a culture where mediocrity is acceptable. Recognise that every day you do not address the issue, you are essentially giving it your seal of approval.
Clarity: The Antidote to Team Problems
Most problems that clinic owners categorise as "team issues" are actually problems with clarity. If a team member is not performing to your expectations, your first step should not be to blame their work ethic or attitude. Instead, you must look at your own processes.
Have you clearly defined what success looks like for their role? Are your expectations documented, or are they just living in your head? If you haven’t provided a clear roadmap, you cannot be surprised when people lose their way. Before you address a person’s performance, you must ensure that your training, systems, and communication are watertight.
Leading with Numbers and KPIs
In a professional healthcare setting, performance should never be a matter of opinion or feeling. If you are not tracking the numbers, nobody else will. To move from clinician to CEO, you must embrace Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). For your clinical team, these should be simple and transparent. Key metrics to monitor include:
- Conversion rates: How many enquiries or initial assessments turn into a plan of care?
- Patient visits: Are patients completing their recommended treatment programmes?
- Occupancy: What percentage of the available diary space is being utilised?
When you have data, difficult conversations become much easier. You are no longer attacking someone’s character; you are simply discussing the gap between the current numbers and the target. This objective approach reduces emotion and allows for a more constructive, professional dialogue.
Moving from Aggression to Curiosity
Many clinic owners avoid leadership because they associate it with conflict or bullying. If you have worked in environments where leadership was synonymous with being told off, it is natural to want to avoid that dynamic. However, effective leadership is not about aggression; it is about curiosity.
When a standard is missed, instead of entering a conversation with a list of accusations, try starting with a question. You might say: "I have noticed that your rebooking rate has dropped from 80 percent to 60 percent over the last month. Can you help me understand why that might be?"
This approach invites the team member to participate in the solution. It might reveal a genuine training need, a personal issue, or a flaw in your front-of-house process. Leading with curiosity allows you to maintain a positive relationship while still holding your team accountable to the high standards your patients deserve.
Your Clinic Grows as Your Leadership Grows
Your business is a reflection of your leadership. If you want to scale your practice, increase your revenue, and reclaim your time, you must prioritise your development as a leader. This is a skill that must be practised and refined, just like your clinical techniques.
Start by identifying one thing you are currently tolerating. Is it a team member consistently turning up five minutes late? Is it a messy staff room? Is it a therapist who refuses to follow your clinical note-taking process? Whatever it is, commit to addressing it this week. Set clear expectations, use your data, and lead with curiosity.
As you stop tolerating the things that hold you back, you create space for excellence to flourish. Your clinic growth is waiting on the other side of the conversations you are currently avoiding.
Listen to the Full Episode
To dive deeper into this topic and hear more from Nicola and myself on the nuances of clinic leadership and CEO thinking, listen to the full episode of Treat Your Business. We share real-world examples and more actionable strategies to help you build the practice of your dreams.
[Link to Podcast Episode]