Lead Your Way
Leadership development and peer coaching for women physicians navigating increasing responsibility, complexity, and change.
Sustainable leadership development for women physicians.
Medicine often rewards overextension without creating space for sustainable leadership. Lead Your Way is built to fill that gap.
Lead Your Way is an ongoing facilitated cohort experience for women physicians taking on increasing leadership responsibility or navigating change. Co-facilitated by Gretchen Rickards, MD, MPH and Diane Shannon, MD, MPH, the program blends leadership frameworks, structured discussion, and peer coaching. Each session is grounded in the realities of practicing medicine and the demands of leading inside complex healthcare systems.
A facilitated cohort. Not a webinar series.
Lead Your Way is small, structured, and discussion-based. Sessions combine leadership frameworks, peer coaching, and reflection on the real challenges of your work, so you leave with practical tools you can apply between meetings.
Each topic is shaped around the realities women physicians face in demanding environments: leading without formal authority, communicating under pressure, delegating well, and protecting the conditions for sustainable leadership.
Because leading well requires structure, peers, and time to think.
Leadership frameworks designed for the realities of practicing medicine.
A small group of women physicians navigating similar leadership demands.
Structured time to think clearly about how you lead and what you need.
What Participants Develop
Outcomes are practical, leadership-focused, and grounded in the realities of medicine.
Clearer leadership priorities
A more defined sense of where to focus your attention, and how to make decisions when demands compete.
Practical communication and delegation skills
Concrete tools for difficult conversations, feedback, delegation, and influence in clinical and team settings.
More sustainable leadership habits
Greater awareness of patterns that drive overextension, and clearer practices for protecting your time and judgment.
A trusted professional community
Ongoing connection with women physicians who understand the demands of leading inside healthcare.
Whether your role is formally titled or informally leading, this program is built for women physicians thinking carefully about how they want to lead.
Sample Topics
Each session is built around a leadership topic and applied to the realities of the cohort. Topics evolve based on participant context.
Leadership identity and values-based decision making
Communication, influence, and difficult conversations
Delegation and managing competing priorities
Boundaries and sustainable leadership practices
Perfectionism, overfunctioning, and patterns under pressure
Career transitions and leading through change
How the program works.
A Reflective CME option is available. Documentation for institutional CME reimbursement can be provided on request.
Led by women physicians who understand the challenges firsthand.
Lead Your Way was created by Dr. Gretchen Rickards and Dr. Diane Shannon, who bring complementary perspectives on leadership development and career sustainability. Together, they have coached hundreds of women physicians across career stages, giving them deep insight into the challenges and opportunities women physicians encounter as they lead and navigate their careers.
Gretchen Rickards, MD, MPH
Gretchen is an executive coach, physician, and experienced leader who has led in healthcare, medical education, and the U.S. Army. She brings deep expertise in developing and coaching leaders as they navigate greater responsibility, change, and organizational complexity.
Diane Shannon, MD, MPH
Diane is a physician, TEDx speaker, and national expert on physician career sustainability and leadership. As a professional coach and co-author of Preventing Physician Burnout: Curing the Chaos and Returning Joy to the Practice of Medicine, she brings deep expertise in helping physicians create sustainable careers, strengthen their leadership, and thrive professionally and personally.
The practical details.
Find out if this is the right fit.
Use the inquiry form below to reach out. We'll share details about the program, the next cohort, and how to apply.