Physicians Business Leadership Advisers (PBLA) consults to physicians, senior executives, and entrepreneurs in health care organizations, academic and medical centers, pharmaceutical, and biotech companies, and startups, on the psychological challenges of managing and leading their organizations.

The Need

Physicians notoriously have difficulty in management and leadership positions. Though called upon to be leaders in many facets of their work: the OR, the ER, hospital administration and committee work, department chairs, and Board activities, running their practice often with partners and full staff, few have received formal leadership or management training. Thrust into positions of power, involving significant leadership responsibilities, many feel unprepared and experience high levels of stress, anxiety, and interpersonal conflict. An increasing number of physicians, having made the transition from private practice to working within a corporate setting, find themselves completely mystified by what they discover. They are often used to having a staff that will be immediately responsive to them. They are not used to working as part of a team-they are not used to “leading up' or “leading down”. They often did not go into medicine with the thought of assuming a managerial position, let alone a CEO or senior executive position. Increasingly however, as pointed out in a recent HBR article, physicians are called upon to be leaders in their everyday medical work. In addition, increasing numbers of physicians have turned to careers outside of clinical medicine: teaching, administration, pharmaceuticals and bio-tech, or have become entrepreneurs in related fields.

What We Offer

We work with physicians-in and out of medicine- and senior healthcare executives and their teams to maximize their leadership potential. 

We help leaders reflect on their roles as leaders, and reflect on the psychology of their organization and management team so they are better able to meet the challenges of working with and leading their organization.

We address the inevitable interpersonal differences and conflicts that often derail organizational performance. We help leaders deal with the psychological toll that leading takes on the individual. We help leaders learn to take decisive action when necessary. We help leaders develop their teams.

Our Approach

Our consulting approach is informed by a number of different perspectives. In addition to utilizing Daniel Goleman's work on emotional intelligence, our model is a psychodynamic one, which focuses on applying the clinical perspective to our consulting work. In this we are indebted to the work of Manfred Kets deVries, who more than any other scholar-practitioner has offered a consulting model for leadership development that focuses on the leader's personal history and “inner theatre” and emphasizes the value of paying attention to the deeply personal aspects of leadership and organizations. Applying a psychodynamic perspective, our coaching process approach specifically illuminates emotionally based, hidden factors within individuals and groups that often work silently against their stated objectives. We identify and address individual and organizational blind spots and interpersonal impasses that frequently play critical roles in management decisions and business life, thereby creating more self-aware successful leaders and more vital, transparent, and resilient organizations.

Services

We provide coaching and consulting to physician leaders and senior executives and their leadership teams in:

-Medical schools and academic medical centers
-Pharmaceuticals and biotech companies
-Health care companies/HMOs
-Hospitals
-Health Care start-ups: Physican and non-physician entrepreneurs
-Governmental agencies and politics

Our Team

Steven S. Rolfe M.D. is a Board Certified Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst and Principal of the Boswell Group, a NY based consulting group focused on consulting to CEO's and senior business leaders on the psychological and interpersonal aspects of management and leadership. Trained as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, he has more than 25 years experience in the assessment and coaching of executives.  Dr. Rolfe has worked with investment professionals, equity, derivative and bond traders, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporate attorneys, and leaders of non-profit institutions. His clientele represent a wide range of fields, including finance, real estate, law, entertainment, medicine, engineering and pharmaceuticals

His leadership experience includes working in a wide range of medical settings in both for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals and institutions; for many years he has been engaged in developing and supervising multidisciplinary teams, often in the context of considerable downsizing of resources. His consulting projects in healthcare have focused on systemic problems, such as issues of morale, "burnout" and performance improvement. He was previously the Medical Director of the Pre-teen Program and President of the Medical Staff of Horsham Clinic in Ambler, PA., Medical Director of the Children's Program at Friend's Hospital in Philadelphia; and Director of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia's Adult Psychotherapy Program and Division of Consultation and Evaluation Services. Dr. Rolfe obtained his Certificate in Family Business Advising through the Family Firm Institute.

Dr. Rolfe received his B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. at Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed Adult Psychiatry training at Tufts University Affiliated Hospitals, and a Child Psychiatry Fellowship at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he was Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. He completed psychoanalytic training at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, where he is currently a faculty member. He is also a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APA), the American Medical Association (AMA), the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (ISPSO), the Family Firm Institute, and the Philadelphia Area Human Resource Planning Society.

He is a member of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Organizational Dynamics ODEN program; the American Psychoanalytic Association's Committee on Corporate and Organizational Consultation, of which he is currently co-Chair of the Committee; and a member of Board of Trustees of the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia.

Other team members:

Anil Behal (PA)
Michael J. Halperin (MA)
Sue Nieboer (MI)
Barrett McBride (CA)
Dr. Earon Kavanagh (Canada)
Allan Smith (MO)


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