Maintaining PD Wellness: What to Do When the Residents or Faculty Are Mad at You

Have your residents or faculty ever been mad at you? Managing the expectations and experiences of residents and faculty is a challenging aspect of program leadership. When negative feedback and emotions are directed your way, it can take an emotional toll and the path forward is often unclear. Why do was ask our learners to adopt a growth mindset and be vulnerable in receiving feedback, but we struggle with this when leading our programs? This workshop will explore and normalize the psychological effects of negative programmatic feedback and provide program leaders with tools to alter their self-talk when challenges arise. We will discuss impediments to growth mindset as program directors, including shame, poor psychological safety, unrealistic time frames, and lack of a structured approach to addressing the problems of managing human resources. Often we turn to authority driven solutions to solve problems instead of learning driven approaches, and despite good intentions we make the problem worse. We will normalize the experience of sometimes failing to meet the expectations of those we serve, and provide frameworks to use when this happens, including self-determination theory, radical transparency, and systematic problem solving. We will provide specific examples of turning negative emotions into positive action. Participants will be able to practice skills learned in the workshop with problems they face at their own institutions. By the end of the workshop, participants will be equipped to manage their own emotions in response to negative feedback and develop a toolkit for effective problem-solving approaches moving forward.