# Dr. Jeffrey Balser: How Great Leaders Handle Hard Things

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/human-school-7543113/dr-jeffrey-balser-how-great-leaders-handle-hard-things
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/human-school-7543113/dr-jeffrey-balser-how-great-leaders-handle-hard-things.md
Podcast: [Human School](https://stenobird.com/podcast/human-school-7543113)
Published: 2026-04-01T23:18:19+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/human-school/episodes/Dr--Jeffrey-Balser-How-Great-Leaders-Handle-Hard-Things-e3ha7he
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/10b384b70/podcast/play/117824494/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-3-1%2F421234914-44100-2-7c89124e8430c.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/human-school-7543113/episodes/dr-jeffrey-balser-how-great-leaders-handle-hard-things
Duration seconds: 6925

## Resource

If this conversation moves you, Onsite might be the nextstep. Their immersive workshops are where people go to stop performing and start doing the real work. Visit experienceonsite.com or call 1(800) 341-7432 to find the experience best for you. What if the grief you buried as a teenager becomes the force that makes you human enough to lead thousands? What if the greatest leadership lessons come not from aboardroom, but from a bedside? Dr. Jeffrey Balser is the CEO and President of VanderbiltUniversity Medical Center, one of the most respected academic medical institutions in the world with 45,000 employees and over a billion dollars in annual community benefit. But beneath the title is a man who spent a lifetime learning what most leaders never slow down long enough to figure out: that the grief you don't deal with follows you into the boardroom, that the skills you build in crisis belong just as much at home, and that the most important thing you lead may not be on your org chart. In this conversation, Miles and Jeff move between thepersonal and professional, with the ease of two people who have spent years paying attention. They talk about losing a mother to cancer at sixteen, how he chose the wrong path in college, and what it cost to walk out of one room where a patient didn't survive and into the next where someone needed him at full capacity. They talk about the Saturday email that confirmed the COVID vaccine worked, how his wife is to credit for Melinda keeping Nashville's parks open during the city shutdown, and why he's had the same executive coach for 25 years. What emerges in this conversation is a portrait of a man leading one of America's great institutions not by having all the answers, but by staying honest about how much he still has to learn. In this…

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## Transcript

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