It’s Not About You (Podcast)

Brian Donley, MD, has nine words he believes help keep his team inspired and focused: compassionate caregivers transforming health and care for the world.

That focus has been especially important during the last year, as Dr. Donley, CEO of Cleveland Clinic London, leads the team that is opening the 184-bed hospital behind Buckingham Palace. While COVID-19 has thrown new challenges into the mix, the hospital has stayed on track for its planned opening in January 2022.

In a conversation with Brian Bolwell, MD, for the podcast Beyond Leadership: At the Intersection of Leadership and Everything Else, Dr. Donley speaks about about his career, his leadership philosophy and how caregiving at the London hospital will dovetail with the rest of the enterprise.

“We are not bringing Cleveland Clinic to London,” Dr. Donley says, “we’re bringing the best of what we do, and we want to integrate with the best of UK healthcare. That learning and innovation, he adds, benefits the 70,000 Cleveland Clinic caregivers who serve patients every day.

Podcast excerpt

Dr. Donley: It’s an incredible privilege to have the opportunity in your life to lead others, and to allow them to be their best. And I think of it not just at work. When you lead a group, you actually lead their lives. And hopefully, you’re not just driving work and discretionary effort, but you’re driving meaning and purpose, opportunities to learn and grow, and actually enrich their entire life. And that’s an amazing privilege. I rarely go a day where I’m not thankful for all the opportunities that Cleveland Clinic has given to me to grow to a position, to have this opportunity in my life to impact others.

I have a picture that I show leadership of a boat going down a big body of water with a big wake behind the boat. And I guess the one thing to leave is I think leadership is about what wake you’re creating. I think a lot of leaders are looking out the front of the boat and they love being on a big boat, and it’s awesome. And the sunset’s out there, and how great. But as a leader, you should be looking behind you and figuring out what wake you’re leaving. And the larger your leadership, the bigger the boat, the bigger the wake.

And is that a nourishing wake that people want to jump into and be a part of, or is it a destructive wake that everyone’s trying to get out of their way? And please, take advantage of the incredible privilege that you have to create a nourishing wake to impact people in their professional and personal lives.