How health care leaders can thrive, not just survive, in a changing environment

For health care leaders, avoiding burnout may not be the highest goal. Katie Lawrence, Psy.D., wants them to aim for thriving.

Lawrence is a consultant with Willow Strategy Group in South Carolina and has more than 20 years of experience in health care operations and leadership, with work spanning independent practices, integrated health systems, accountable care organizations and start-ups. She recently completed a doctorate in leadership psychology with a neuroscience specialty, and her research focuses on thriving as a leader in rapidly changing environments. She presented "More than Resilience: Thriving as a Healthcare Leader" at the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) 2026 Annual Conference.

She also spoke with Medical Economics, describing how she talked with health care workers about burnout for years before turning her doctoral research toward something more.

"I wasn't just interested in how we can just survive health care, and certainly we want to avoid burnout. But could we go one step further? Could we help leaders to truly thrive?" she said.

Thriving has two parts, she explained: vitality, meaning the energy, meaning and purpose a person feels, and learning and growth. Both must be present. Lawrence described health care as a "dancing landscape," a term from complexity theory, in which priorities rise and fall like waves in a storm and leaders must adjust their strategies as they shift. Those priorities are also tangled together, she said, so that fixing one problem, such as physician compensation, can affect resources for supplies or staffing.

Her research, based on a survey of 145 health care executives, examined seven leadership competencies: adaptive performance, cognitive flexibility, growth mindset, emotional intelligence, political skill, leadership self-efficacy and reflection. In her conference session, she reported that each one predicted thriving on its own, and that adaptive performance and political skill stood out when all seven were analyzed together. In the interview, she explained what those skills look like in practice and why political skill isn't the same as manipulation.

Her research also showed how leaders can build those skills: Learn about them, then talk them through with an executive coach, consultant, mentor, colleague or boss. And the payoff reaches patients, Lawrence said.

"I want to know that the team around me is competent in what they can do, and that starts with really these internal competencies that then become external and team relationships," she said.