Some days I feel like all I do is smooth things out with team members, patients, providers, collaborators. I joke with others that I have a leadership “spatula” – an off-set one – that smooths the rough and bumpy places like a baker icing a large sheet cake. It looks daunting, but after enough practice, it only takes a few strokes to make creases and imperfections disappear into goodness.

Still, there is a dichotomy to this sheet cake leadership. Many, many days I stir and disrupt those same groups – like forming peaks on a meringue pie – for the benefit of everyone involved in health care at the moment or the coming future. Yes, the pie is already fabulous, but it’s the golden peaks that really make a meringue pie spectacular. This skill, too, is equally daunting, yet it can be developed to flow just as easily and seamlessly as the sheet cake leadership version.

Both kinds of leadership are necessary for balance and a healthy and innovative team.