What exactly does it mean to be a ‘good’ wellness leader?
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself how we, as an industry, define a ‘good’ wellness leader? What leadership skills and traits do they have?
Some words that come to mind from the image we’ve painted over the years are the following:
- “wellness-oriented”
- “gentle”
- “connected to emotions”
- “sensitive”
- “not business-oriented”
- “not hard-wired for operational efficiencies or business strategies”
- …
And what these words have done is build the image of this somewhat “woo woo” leader, who is so wellbeing-conscious, that they’re incapable of being strong business leaders.
It’s almost as if being wellbeing-conscious (however we might want to define that), is incompatible with being a strong BUSINESS leader.
We’re essentially saying that you can be great at your craft, but you can’t be great at business. And vice versa, if you’re great at business, you can’t possibly be great at your craft.
I think we all know that that simply is not true.
You can be BOTH amazing at your craft, have amazing knowledge of the different wellness services and be a brilliant practitioner and therapist, AND a strong business leader.
You can help people enhance their overall wellbeing, and you can also be good at the business of enhancing overall wellbeing.
And I’d also like to go a step further and say that if you can’t be good at the business of enhancing overall wellbeing, you simply can’t be good at the craft of enhancing wellbeing. Because, if you do not have a successful and commercially sustainable business, you simply can’t reach the people who need your help, and in turn, you can’t have the impact you want to.
Today, I’d like to delve deeper into what exactly it means to be a ‘good’ wellness leader.
