Four Leadership Books That Actually Change Teams (Episode 37)

Ever feel like your clinic is working hard but not quite working together? We dig into four leadership books that cut through the noise and give you practical frameworks for trust, culture, feedback, and recognition—tools you can use the same day you hear them.

We start with Patrick Lencioni’s The Advantage and its backbone, the Five Dysfunctions model. You’ll hear how trust enables productive conflict, how real debate leads to commitment, why peer accountability beats top-down policing, and how a focus on results keeps the team aligned. From hiring to meetings to strategy, we share how iCare leaders can translate these ideas into cleaner workflows and clearer goals.

Then we hop on Jon Gordon’s The Energy Bus to talk culture, ownership, and direction. Leaders set the destination and decide who’s on the bus. We call out “energy vampires,” share ways to protect momentum, and explain how positivity paired with metrics powers patient flow, documentation, and staff morale. From there, we tackle tough conversations with Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, turning daily friction into calm, specific feedback that actually lands—observation, impact, need, and a clear request.

Finally, we bring it home with The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman. Recognition is a retention strategy, not a perk. We break down words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, tangible gifts, and appropriate physical touch (think handshakes and high fives), with tips to match each to your team’s preferences while keeping boundaries and compliance in view.

If you’re leading an ophthalmology or optometry team and want a stronger culture, smoother communication, and better results, this conversation is your playbook. Subscribe, share with a fellow leader, and leave a quick review to tell us which idea you’ll try first.

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This episode is brought to you by Seasoned Advice HR, where I help eye care clinics to hire, retain, and manage better — helping you get Better Results Through People. Learn more at seasoned-advice.com. 

Get my free HR and leadership downloads here: https://www.seasoned-advice.com/signup-for-free-downloads

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Why Books

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Greetings and welcome to iCare Leadership Live. This is the podcast for iCare leaders who want to level up their leadership, create better cultures, and improve the financial results in their clinics. In this episode, I'll be sharing with you my top four leadership books, what they talk about, and why I love them so much. I can't wait to share those with you. Let's jump into the show. So today we're going to talk about my favorite leadership books, my favorite business books. And I can only scratch the surface, really. And so I'm going to talk about the top ones and try to share a little bit of a variety with you. And I'll I'd be interested to hear from you what your favorite books are. So if you are listening to the show, um, drop me a note. Let me know what's your favorite book? What kind of um you know books have really inspired you? Are there some authors that have shaped who you are as a leader? I'd love to hear about it. Um, but let's go ahead and jump in. Why delay? Um, the first, I'm gonna start right at the top with the GOAT, greatest of all time, in my opinion. Patrick Lencioni. And his book, The Advantage, is the best one to look at, in my opinion, because The Advantage covers so many topics. And it is, I think it's the best book. If you there's no other book you listen to from this episode, listen to or read The Advantage by Patrick Lenciani because he talks about what leaders should be focused on. He talks about how to hire, how to manage. Um, I think he talks about meetings in there. He has a book just about meetings, and I think his ideas on meetings are in the advantage. But but more than anything, he also talks about how to organize your attention as a leader and as a top leader, especially if you're the CEO or you know, practice administrator, um, really talks about how to organize your thoughts and plan and be strategic and keep yourself focused. Um, but you know, the way that he explains things in his books is so easily digestible because he puts it in a story format and it's not overly simplistic, like some of the Spencer Johnson, you know, kind of who moved my cheese type books, which those are fine. But I find Patrick Palencioni's stories a little bit more engaging, and I find his concepts to be both complex and substantive enough, but also not too heady. I don't like a book that's overly heady. Um management just it's not that complicated, and so overcomplicating it to me, I don't enjoy that. I don't enjoy when there are too many scientific references. I like science-backed information, but I don't want to read an academic book. I want to read a book from someone who's lived it in the trenches, and Patrick Lancioni has advised many, many businesses and nonprofits uh through his work. Um, and he started as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. So he knows consulting and he knows what is effective and what's not. And um, it's an amazing work. And one of the things I got from The Advantage was, you know, the my method, my personal method for helping to create core values in a business. And I think that alone is really, really important. Something you should you should take away from that book. Um, but yes, his and inside the book The Advantage, he talks about the five dysfunctions of a team. And those are wow, that is just gold right there. Um, I have done trainings on that, I've talked about that. It helps me, it has helped me analyze team effectiveness. And the five dysfunctions of a team are you know incredibly useful. It's an incredibly useful paradigm that you can that you can incorporate into your into your daily work. It helps you think about it helps you think about how to understand your team and and why it's doing the things that it's doing and and what what the potential issues are with your team. And so um just getting familiar with that is really important. Um the basics of the five dysfunctions at the very at the very bottom, just to give you a flavor of it, is building trust. Are you building trust with your team? Does your team have trust in each other? Is what that really is all about. Um, next up is can your team resolve conflict? Can they have a debate and a discussion with each other? Or do they just kind of roll over, or do they just argue without having any kind of productive discussion? You know, so being able to have a productive discussion is really important. Actually, I'll for those of you watching on video, I'm putting up just a slide of this here. Um, and I'm and it shows the triangle. But the next level of Patrick Lindsay and these five discussions is making a commitment. And so does the team commit around a singular goal and and and stick to it, right? So after the the the conflict and the discussion, can they commit? Can we and as part as a leader, you help to create that commitment and you create clarity around that commitment. So this is basically goal setting, okay? And you want that to be done as a team. You don't want that to be done from an ivory tower that just says, hey, here's the goal, or else the team is not really going to buy in. The next level of dysfunction um is not holding each other accountable. So you want your team to hold each other accountable. That means we talk about the results, we we talk about the behaviors, we we talk to each other about good behavior, not good behavior, and we call it out when it's not good. And then and then the very pinnacle of the triangle is focusing on results. And this is celebrating success and remembering to focus on results and not behaviors are good and holding each other accountable, but but focusing on results and celebrating success. So those are the five elements of the five dysfunctions of a team, and that's just part of that book, the the advantage. And so um highly recommend that book. Check it out, it's absolutely my number one recommendation. My number two book recommendation is the energy bus. The energy bus by John Gordon. John Gordon really crushed it with the energy bus. Again, it's a story format, and it's a super easy read, and the concepts are very basic, but they're incredibly powerful. I guess I think that's really my favorite type of book is a book that is conceptually strong, simple, but incredibly high impact in its simplicity. It makes sense. It makes sense, and it's easy for managers to understand. Okay, this is not a book for your Harvard Business Review hedge fund um vice president. This is a book, and all the books, my favorite books, are books that are ideal for a practice manager, practice administrator, and their supervisors that that are helping to run their clinics. The Energy Bus is one of those books because the concepts in the Energy Bus are incredibly simple and powerful. So I'll again for those watching, I'll put it put a graphic up on the screen. But you know, the energy bus is all about, you know, you're in charge. You're the as the leader, you are setting the you're setting the tone for your team. You're setting the tone for what does it mean to be on this bus? Okay, you're the driver. Um, you have a vision, you know, you're driving the bus. Like, where are we going in this bus, right? Where are we going? Are we going to ecstatically happy patient land? Are we going to incredible employee experience town? Or are we going to mediocrityville? Um, or are we just going wherever and we don't even know where we're going? Okay. Um, you know, and the last one I'll point out from the energy bus is removing energy vampires from your bus. This is one of my favorite parts of the book where he talks about energy vampires. And when I say that word, if you're a clinic manager out there or you're a doctor, you own a clinic, you know who those energy vampires are, or you've worked with them in your career, and they're no fun. Not only are they not fun, but more importantly, they're not productive and they actually hamper your productivity. And so those are just some examples of phrases and concepts from the energy bus that John Gordon really brings to life in this book, The Energy Bus. And I cannot recommend it enough. I I used to have a printout of the of the 10 principles from the energy bus because I loved them so much and I had them in my office. Um, I also recommend there is a book he wrote called The Energy Bus for Kids. And my son, who is, I think he was eight when I got that book, maybe seven, he would have me read that book to him periodically. And it just because it's such a positive book, and it's about like a little boy who rides the bus, and maybe there's bullies and things, and so it's very relatable for kids. I think it's right in that age range of like seven to ten, and highly recommend it because you're getting a great message for your kids with that. But for the adults in your business, the energy bus. Um, such a such a positive and useful and entertaining book that absolutely recommend it all the time, and I recommend it uh, you know, in presentations and all that. Okay, so my next book, next favorite book is the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. And you may think, uh, nonviolent communication, that seems really um, I don't know, that seems a little bit uh weird of a concept. Like, what does that even mean, right? Um, and I'm trying to find for those watching on the uh watching on the on the video, I'm trying to find a graphic, but for the for everyone else, um there this book is all about how to communicate in a way that does not create a threatening um vibe for the person you're talking to, for lack of a better word. Because you know, trust and safety at work and performance at work is largely about um safety. Do I feel safe? Do I feel empowered? Do I feel trusted? Do I feel valued? And nonviolent communication is a way to, especially when we're talking about giving feedback, especially when we're talking about feedback or difficult situations, it's a way to articulate yourself in a way that preserves the safety, preserves the trust. And when you think about it, you know, managing is easy when everyone's just doing their job and they're doing exactly how you would want it done, and the doctor is getting everything that they want. But how often does that happen? How often do you walk into work at 8 a.m. and leave work at 5 p.m.? And there was at no point during the day, at no point did someone do something that wasn't ideal. Then at no point did someone do something that was a misinterpretation or miss their expectation. At no point did anyone fail to follow their job description or go the extra mile. That never happens. That never happens. Every day, every day, someone is gonna miss the mark to some extent, right? Maybe they'll be late, maybe they'll put the instruments in the wrong spot, maybe they will mix up the um the numbing gel, you know, or cream or whatever that they were supposed to do, or maybe they forgot to do the imaging that the doctor wanted because of this particular patient's diagnosis. Every day you're gonna encounter that. And so at some point, you're gonna have to rock the boat, as it were, by bringing that up, by bringing up feedback or by making a request. Okay, and nonviolent communication gives you a framework through which to communicate these little you know, friction points. Every day there's a little some point of friction, right? And so as a manager, your job wouldn't exist if everyone just did everything perfectly every day, right? The reason your job exists is is largely because of those little friction points when the when the bus, going back to our last book, when the bus starts to kind of veer off the road a little bit, you're gonna have to make a request and share an observation to redirect that bus or that employee back on the right path. And so nonviolent communication is really all about that. And it gives you a framework here, you know, by sharing your observation, your feelings, what your needs are, and your and to make a request. Now, um, and this works at home too, by the way. Um, and I would say sometimes this exact framework, you may want to, you may want to tweak it a little bit. We don't always want to talk about our feeling. Well, you irritated me. Um, but what you do want to talk about is the impact. You do want to talk about the impact of what that person did. And so that's really what this is about. The you know, this step two of nonviolent communication is sharing what was the impact. Maybe it was an impact on you personally, maybe it was an impact on the doctor or the clinic, but sharing an impact uh is important because that's giving people the why. Why does this even matter? Why are you talking to me? Why are you giving me this feedback? Well, because it slows the clinic down when you, you know, take too long with your chart notes, for example, whatever the case may be. And so I just find I found nonviolent communication to be a supreme, supreme um book when it comes to articulating difficult subjects. And I like that it's useful at home and at work because the more you practice those skills um at home and at work, it's gonna help the other place, right? So if you're using at home, then it's gonna help you at work. If you're using it, using it at work, it's gonna help you at home. And so because it applies really to every circumstance, that is for me why it is one of the greatest of all time books uh on communication. So I highly recommend you check that out, especially for people who struggle to articulate, you know, areas where you're disappointed. It like, for example, maybe it comes out really angry or it comes out abrupt, you know, because you bottle it in. Or maybe you maybe you express it a little too wishy-washy and you express it a little too softly, and the your employees or your team members never really take it seriously. This book is great for helping to kind of get you into uh a middle zone, a middle zone there. This show is sponsored by seasoned advice to HR Services, where I help eye care businesses to make more money and save more money by hiring better, retaining better, and reducing your HR risk. If you would like an HR assessment or ongoing HR support, please reach out to me at seasoned-advice.com. All right, I've got one more book to share with you. And this is another one. You know, it's funny. I guess I like books that apply at home and at work because my next book here is The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. And if you know anything about this book, you know that it was written by, uh, you know that was written by, who was it? Let me remind myself here. Uh, oh yeah, Gary Chapman. Gary Chapman. So Gary Chapman wrote the five love languages. He wrote the five love languages, and the five love languages was this incredibly popular book. I want to say it was maybe in the early 2000s, and it was about how to show appreciation to your partner, your romantic partner. And it was a powerful book, and and it talked about the five ways that you can connect with your partner. And the cool thing is that it can be applied at work too. It can be applied at work in a in a in a legally compliant way, mind you. Um, and so I'll talk about that. It can be totally legally compliant. And as an HR person, I endorse it. But the first the first language of appreciation is words of affirmation. This is about saying positive things, giving encouragement. Maybe it's a written note, maybe it's a verbal, maybe it's in private, maybe it's in public, but words of affirmation. Incredibly powerful way to show appreciation or to make someone feel valued. And really, isn't that what love is after all? It's making someone feel valued. And so, you know, we don't really talk about loving our employees. I don't think, you know, if this book had been called, again, you know, the love languages, um, I think people might raise an eyebrow, but but really that is a fair, I think that's a fair word, but here we're just talking about appreciation. Maybe that's a better word, doesn't make people feel so nervous. Um, but appreciating your employees, okay. Next topic from from Gary Chapman, quality time. So spending time with your employees and your team members, talking to them, understanding about their lives, um helping them learn, right? Mentoring them. That could be quality time, also. Acts of service is another language of appreciation at work. So jumping in. To help. Um, giving some information, um, sending them off to a training, maybe could be an active service. Um, you know, what is it something that you can do for your employees? Uh, maybe give them a day off, maybe might be an active service. You know, some of these things can kind of blend together. Gifts is another language, love language at work, right? So this would be tangible things, monetary things. Um, maybe it's uh a raise or a bonus, or maybe gift card to a restaurant or something like that. Um, and then the most controversial one, or seemingly controversial one that Gary Chapman talks about is physical touch. Now, I'm an HR person, and you may say, well, why would an HR person advocate for physical touch at work? Well, there's appropriate physical touch and there's inappropriate physical touch. And I don't I've never heard of anyone feeling uncomfortable as a result of a handshake, um, or maybe a pat on the back or a high five, perhaps. Now, everyone's different, you know your people. Um, don't push the boundaries. But a handshake, a high five are meaningful ways to show another person that you value them. Um, now is a handshake all is that all you're gonna do? Are you and you expect to retain your employees and help them feel valued by shaking their hand? No, but it is a part of the picture. And I would encourage you to utilize all these appreciation languages at work. Um, but it really human nature, humans feel calmer and they feel more trusting um when they have FaceTime and dare I say, physical contact, right? And so a handshake, a high five. Um, it shows someone or even a hug in some places. You know, some people are very comfortable with hugs. I've I've met tons of people at work or at conferences that, you know, they're clearly huggers and it's not a big deal. And so, you know, do you want to go around hugging people indiscriminately? No, but there is a time and a place and and the right person for that, and you generally know who that is. And um, sometimes a hug is the right thing to make someone feel valued and to feel safe and trusted. Like if they're going through a hard time or they're going through a celebratory moment, then a hug could be the right thing, absolutely. Um proceed with caution on the hugs. But um for most of us, uh, we know what we're doing, we know how to deploy the hug wisely. Um, but if you're in doubt, stick to handshakes and high fives. How about that? Um, but but in general, this book is really a powerful way to reinforce this concept. And it's one that I've trained on, and it's one that you don't even really need the book for, to be quite honest with you. But the con I want to attribute these concepts to Gary Chapman because they're really powerful and um he created it. And so those are my those are my five, uh, I don't know how many there were actually, those are my top books. Were there five? Uh those were four books uh that I really recommend. Uh, what are your favorite books? I'd love to hear from you. And there was a bunch more that I could have talked about, but I'd love to hear from you. What are your favorite leadership books? You know, if you're an ophthalmology leader or an optometry leader and you have found a book that really resonates with you and the way that you lead and in the environment that you lead in, uh I'd love to hear it. And I'd love to read it because I haven't read them all. Uh, so please share. If you're watching the video, drop a comment or send me a note if there's a book that you really like. Um, but that's going to wrap up our show today. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you in the next one. Well, that brings this episode of iCare Leadership Live to a conclusion. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show on your podcast app and share it with someone who would value the content. I promise to bring you more guests and content to help make you a better iCare clinical leader. I also invite you to subscribe to my HR newsletter for iCare leaders. You can find information about that at stepens advice.com. Now go out there and lead with confidence.