Preventing Burnout in Healthcare: Coaching Healthcare Managers and Executive Coach Training
To prevent burnout in healthcare organizations, leaders shouldn't over rely on "resiliency programs" focusing on clinicians practicing self-care. What health care leaders need is commitment to management practices that improve the working conditions most associated with burnout risk: time pressure, unreliable workflows, weak supervision support, and disrespectful behavior.
A CDC health care analysis (published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 2022) reported that 45.6% of health workers felt burned out often or very often — up from 31.9% in 2018. The same report found workplace harassment more than doubled, from 6.4% (2018) to 13.4%. These are not abstract cultural problems but are operational issues that wise management must address.
The CDC also points to a hopeful direction: certain working conditions were associated with a lower risk of burnout, including trust in management, supervisor support, sufficient time to complete work, and workplace conditions that support productivity. That's why an executive coaching approach is practical in healthcare: it gives managers a disciplined way to spot early warning patterns and supports changes that protect quality and a sustainable workforce.
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Physician Burnout in Healthcare: Use Coaching as an Early Intervention
In the book, Physician Burnout by doctors Reldan Nadler, Zeina Ghossoub El-Aswad, and Naim El-Aswad, the authors frame burnout as an "emotionally malignant" condition, and highlight what they call a pendulum of burnout symptoms — a swing between over-functioning (working longer, compensating for system gaps, carrying extra responsibility) and emotional withdrawal (cynicism, detachment, reduced engagement).
In healthcare, that "pendulum" idea is particularly helpful for managers because it encourages earlier intervention: instead of waiting until a clinician is openly distressed — or already resigning — leaders can treat patterns like chronic after-hours work and reduced participation as signals that the conditions of the medical practice need adjustment.
I advise healthcare leaders to adopt a wholistic approach: support clinicians' internal skills (communication, emotion regulation under stress, effective boundary-setting) while simultaneously getting coached to step into their leadership responsibilities by improving workplace conditions that force people into heroic overwork. An enlightened leader can hold both these truths: "Your standards matter — and the system must be designed so your standards don't require self-sacrifice."
Coaching Healthcare Managers: Working Conditions That Reduce Provider Burnout
Most managers would like to help, and those who don't should be held accountable by their managers. The problem is not usually intentional; it's the absence of knowing a reliable method to help effectively in a challenging healthcare environment. The following management approaches are practical to implement without major organizational change yet targeted enough to improve conditions.
Capacity-and-Tradeoffs Huddle: A Practical Tool for Preventing Burnout in Healthcare
The Capacity-and-Tradeoffs Huddle
A 10-minute huddle twice a week can prevent overload from becoming invisible. The purpose is not to "check in" emotionally; it's to make decisions.
Use three questions:
- Where are we at risk this week? (safety, patient experience, team strain)
- What will we stop or delay to protect the top priorities?
- What decision or resource do we need within 24 hours?
Why it works: it converts supervisor "support" into action and forces leadership to make the trade-offs that clinicians otherwise absorb personally.
Reducing Electronic Health Records (EHR) Time After Work: Coaching Managers on Inbox and Documentation Rules
The Inbox-and-Documentation Rules Conversation
Documentation and message volume are powerful accelerants of burnout because they create "work after work." An American Academy of Family Physicians article reported that family physicians spent 5.9 hours of an 11.4-hour workday in the EHR, plus nearly 90 minutes per day of after-hours "pajama time."
Managers usually cannot solve the problems of an EHR, but they can coach teams to create organizational guidelines that reduce workload:
- Which messages can a protocol handle to route away from the providers?
- Which issues should be scheduled for visits rather than long asynchronous exchanges?
- What documentation elements are clinically important versus habits?
- How can we ensure uninterrupted time for charting?
The coaching approach matters because conscientious clinicians often equate boundary-setting with lowering professional standards. A good manager reframes it: "We're protecting standards by removing hassles."
Harassment and Civility: Coaching Leaders to Reset for a Culture of Respect and Psychological Safety
The Respect-and-Safety Reset
Because harassment is a prominent stressor in healthcare, whether from staff, patients, or management, managers need a direct, practiced response.
A simple "reset" script helps during destructive interchanges:
- "We can continue this conversation respectfully, or we can pause and involve another leader/security."
- "Please report this. My job is to make sure you can do your work without threats or abuse."
Practicing these types of scripts teaches assertive methods for managing challenging interactions. It's about making respect for everyone a requirement for working conditions that reduce burnout risk and protect team performance.
Coaching Example of Dr. Farris: Supporting a Conscientious Physician Without Lowering Standards
Dr. Farris is known for high clinical standards and careful documentation. Recently, she's consistently staying late to finish notes and rechecking others' work because she doesn't fully trust the workflow system. She isn't complaining, but she is compensating at her own expense. A manager who lacks coaching skills may unintentionally reinforce the problem: "You're amazing; thank you for going above and beyond." That praise keeps the system broken and places the burden on the clinician.
A coaching-trained leader begins with observable facts and values:
- "I'm seeing consistent after-hours charting and more rechecking of handoffs. Your standards protect patients. I'm concerned though that the current workflow is forcing you to carry too much risk personally."
Then the leader coaches for system improvement:
- "Which part of the day is creating the after-hours charting — interruptions, message volume, number of patients, discharge timing, staffing gaps or something else?"
- "Where is the workflow failing in ways that make you feel you have to redo work?"
- "What's one small change that would make tomorrow easier without compromising safety?"
The leader and provider agree to a two-week test, such as:
- A standardized handoff checklist for cross-coverage
- Protected documentation blocks during predictable peak times, with interruptions routed elsewhere except for urgent issues
Two indicators are tracked: after-hours EHR time and frequency of handoff errors. The goal is not to reduce standards; it's a system in which standards are sustainable.
Executive Coach Training for Healthcare Leaders: ICF Coach Credential Pathways and Burnout Prevention
Why Coach Training Belongs in Healthcare Leadership Development
Many healthcare managers were promoted for clinical competence — not because they were trained to manage difficult personalities, navigate budget cuts, and redesign workflows with their teams. Coach training helps by building a repeatable skill set: developing their own and others' emotional intelligence, structured coaching conversations, accountability without blame, and the ability to translate stress signals into operational change.
There is also evidence that coaching can improve physician well-being. A randomized experiment of 88 physicians reported in JAMA Internal Medicine found that organizationally sponsored executive coaching was associated with a significant reduction in emotional exhaustion and overall burnout symptoms, along with improvements in quality of life and resilience.
A new trend in healthcare leadership is the use of certified team coaches. Team coaches take a systems approach to improving the functioning of an organization and provide a path for greater engagement and constructive problem solving. Increasingly experienced coaches further their competence by obtaining team coaching training and certification.
If your organization wants fewer burnout cases among providers, the path forward is not another resilience campaign. It is leadership development that equips managers to coach working conditions, capacity, scheduling, workflow reliability, and respect — so that clinicians can deliver superb care without burning out.
Excellent coaches require accredited training and certification. You can find out more by exploring College of Executive Coaching's Intensive Coach Training Certification and College of Executive Coaching's Two-hour a Week Certification.
