NFL medical adviser tells physicians, like athletes, ‘the leader you’re looking for is you’

In his keynote address at this year’s Ending Clinician Burnout Global Summit, Thom Mayer, MD, FACEP, likened the health care practitioners in the audience to the professional football players he routinely treats.

“Every person here is no different than my NFL athletes — 2,500 of them — who participate in a high-performance activity with a cycle of performance, rest and recovery,” Mayer, medical director for the NFL Players Association, said during his presentation. “I’d also suggest that the ‘rest and recovery’ part has been a bit neglected, and all of us collectively need to work on that.”

In his talk — titled “Leadership is worthless, but leading is priceless” — Mayer distinguished the hierarchical concept of leadership from the simple act of leading on a daily basis.

“We have to remember that the leader we’re looking for is not upstairs,” he said. “The answers are not above us. They’re within us and among us. The leader you’re looking for is you.”

Taking ownership of one’s ability to lead — regardless of professional rank — is a powerful way for clinicians to address burnout, Mayer said.

“Yes, we need to change the system, and yes, we have to use all the tools [we have],” he said. “But we also need to look within. Get away from this idea that someday, you’ll be a leader. Embrace the fact that you are a leader and delight in it — and use it to inspire others.”

‘The right place’

Mayer recounted a dinner he and his wife, Maureen, shared with Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his wife.

Sullenberger — a retired airline pilot — is known for landing a U.S. Airways plane in the Hudson River in 2009 after a bird strike disabled both engines.

Fittingly, their conversation focused on leadership in times of crisis.

At one point, Sullenberger stated his belief that a person is “not a pilot until the engines go silent.”

“I asked him, ‘Well, what are you until then?’” Mayer said. “And he said, ‘You’re just a driver — a very expensive driver.’”

Similarly, crises in the medical field can bring out unexpected leadership qualities, Mayer said.

“We’re only leading in times of crisis, but we’re always in times of crisis,” he said. “All of you will lead through the course of your lives in times of crisis.”

The best work — and the best leadership — happens when an individual’s “deep joy intersects with the world’s deep need,” Mayer said.

He discussed a recent moment that reminded him of his own deep joy.

He had been in Ukraine with a group of clinicians who spent 3 weeks treating almost 350 patients and training more than 1,700 Ukrainian medical personnel. One day, three Su-17 flanker jets flew past Mayer’s window, shattering the glass, while four Russian rockets hit three blocks away.

Later, during an interview with CNN, anchor and correspondent Pamela Brown asked Mayer what he was thinking as he ran toward the billowing smoke on the horizon.

“I told her I was thinking I was in the right place,” he said. “The question is, are you in the right place? Are you in a place where you can exercise your deep joy through leading in times of crisis?”

Re-recruitment, reflection and accountability

Clinicians face crises in the American health care system every day, and burnout can interfere with their ability to lead and find joy at work, Mayer said.

“What is burnout? It’s the inability to experience your deep joy. That’s all it is,” he said. “It’s a ratio of job stressors versus adaptive capacity and resiliency.”

When trying to help members of a health care team reconnect to their deep joy, Mayer emphasized the concept of ‘re-recruitment.”

“There are three steps to re-recruitment: Number one, re-recruit your ‘A team’ members every day — thank them. Don’t assume they know how good they are,” he said. “Number two, re-recruit the ‘B team’ members back to the ‘A team’ through specific coaching, not by generically saying ‘be better.’ Teach them how to be better.”

Those on the “C team” present a special challenge, Mayer said. He said he never gives up on these team members but added that sometimes they may ultimately realize that their passion may lie elsewhere in the health care field. He advised clinicians experiencing burnout to recall what originally inspired them to pursue a career in medicine.

“Take time for reflection,” he said. “Write a letter to yourself and ask yourself, ‘What was my deep joy?’ Why did you become a doctor, a nurse, a counselor? Ask yourself what brought you into health care, and what could help you find your way back.”

Holding members of a health care team accountable is important, and it “is not at odds with effective, compassionate leadership,” Mayer said.

“Demanding mutual accountability — not accountability to the boss, but accountability to each other as cross-functional teams — is not only consistent with compassion, it’s essential to true compassion,” he said. “It’s the ability to say, ‘I care enough about you to remind you of the importance of each of us living up to our promise.’”

Mayer also emphasized resiliency in the face of failure. Failure shouldn’t hold a person back or constrain them; rather, it should liberate them.

“The football players I work with spend three to five times more time in the film room, studying how they can get better than they do in the weight room or on the practice field,” he said. “Use that time of failure not to paralyze you, but to help you move forward and fuel your future successes.”

For more information:

Thom Mayer, MD, FACEP, can be reached at thommayer@gmail.com.