In the latest Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) “On Leadership” blog post, Daryn David, PhD, PCC, and Tara Davila, LCSW, reflect on lessons learned from teaching a year-long course, “Leading with Intention and Heart in Academic Medicine” to fellow YCSC faculty members.
Opinion
Learning to Lead with Intention and Heart in Academic Medicine
A blog post “On Leadership”
Beginning in the fall 2025 semester, we had the pleasure of co-designing and co-teaching a year-long course at YCSC titled, “Leading with Intention and Heart in Academic Medicine.” The course forms the centerpiece of a broader “Leadership Learning Lab” initiative and has thus inherited the short-but-sweet acronym “L3.”
The aim of L3 is to teach content and skills that can help shift the leadership paradigm of academic medicine from "me" to "we.” This shift moves us toward centering the needs of the community and addressing what faculty members need to thrive in this environment—from each other, the system, and leadership.
The course meets monthly for two hours and is grounded in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and systemic approaches to holistic development. At the outset, participants are guided to identify and embrace their strengths and personal values.
The focus then expands to address the importance of promoting dignity, dynamic conversation, and emergent group processes to enhance inclusion and interpersonal relationships in the academic medical workplace.
L3 concludes with organizational-level considerations of concepts designed to promote the flourishing of all beings. We introduce the fundamentals of restorative practices, a “power with” worldview (a framework developed by activist and scholar Joanna Macy), and principles of the “honorable harvest” (a concept introduced by botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer).
The process of teaching this course has been dynamic and challenging. While a lot of the content related to self-reflection, intentionality, and inclusive leadership was already familiar to us, other parts—especially those focused on systemic processes—were less so. We chose to approach the integration of this newer material with humility, integrity, and vulnerability.
The overall ethos in the course has been one of self-reflection and co-creation with our faculty participants, which is integral to a service leadership model. We explored how related concepts and practices may or may not apply to the clinical, scholarly, and teaching missions of an academic medical ecosystem. Being together with our colleagues in this way has been vibrant, spontaneous, and exciting. This is a reflection, perhaps, of the broader principles of interdependent, non-hierarchal learning that we feel is essential for shifting from an ethos of “me” to “we.”
We are currently discussing how to share what we have learned from this process. Plans are underway to co-author a paper with two faculty participants, focused primarily on how our process of learning together could inform the type of paradigm shift that we are advocating for within the academic medical system. Other questions involve exploring, testing, and evaluating specific ways to integrate core principles and practices into the teaching, clinical, and research missions of YCSC, as a department within a school of medicine.
Starting this coming fall, we plan to offer a series of “Leading with Intention and Heart” workshops available to professionals external to our department as part of a new YCSC professional development academy. We plan to offer both stand-alone introductory courses and longer, sequential, integrative options for those familiar with service leadership practices. We anticipate that these offerings will be eligible for continuing education credit for a variety of professionals.
Ultimately, our goal is to share the fundamental practices and mindsets required for leading inclusively, humanistically, and interdependently within academic medicine. Our hope is that this teaching nourishes itself, catalyzing faculty members to approach their work with others in ways that may renew and enhance meaning, reenergize teams, and spark new innovations and hope in their work.
The “On Leadership” blog was launched in 2022 to address the importance of connection, collaboration, and embodying a service leadership mindset in professional and personal contexts across Yale School of Medicine (YSM). YCSC Assistant Professor Daryn H. David, PhD, manages the blog and serves as director for leadership development and coaching initiatives in the Office of Academic and Professional Development at YSM.