Managing a Team of Former Peers.

Abstract

Becoming a manager of former peers is a common occurrence in medical practice management, but it can be awkward and challenging. This article describes the specific staff management challenges that recently promoted practice managers encounter. It urges promoted managers to seek support outside the practice through new friendships, mentoring, and leadership networks. This article also describes how best to announce the promotion and suggests that new managers hold one-on-one meetings with each employee. It offers the agenda for those meetings and for the manager's first whole-team leadership kickoff meeting. This article also describes smart first tasks for a promoted practice manager and considers the possibility that some employees may not come on board with the changing social and leadership structures in the practice, and what to do about them. Finally, this article suggests that preparation to become a medical practice manager should start early. It offers a strategy for handling former peers who continue to overshare personal information with the manager. It describes how to handle four common authority challenges newly promoted practice managers may face, with sample dialogue. And it suggests a social media strategy medical practice managers can use when they are connected electronically to their former peers.