In this October 2025 podcast edition, Dr. Thomas White and Mr. Gregory Griggs, our NCAFP CEO, discuss leadership in all its various forms, situations, and life arenas. Their insights got me to thinking about my own experiences with leadership.
I wish I could say that I’ve been a consistently good leader, but I haven’t. Like many of my peers, I’ve made mistakes and bad choices through my career. Sometimes I wasn’t calmly steering above the storm, but was rather the storm itself. Stormtroopers are never a good thing. Disruption, inchoate anger, and frustration don’t build trust or admiration. Although we doctors are “human”, our teammates, patients, and community expect us to follow the highest standards of Humanity. It’s a high bar, and sometimes I would fall flat.
But sometimes, I got it right.
By the early 2000’s, I had been in practice for over 20 years. I had a good practice on Main Street in my hometown. Yet I felt like I wasn’t really accomplishing anything. My patients still had lifestyle illnesses. My stock answer was to recommend “get outside, walk, go to the gym, use the car less, buy quality foods, maintain good friendships, etc”. Patients pushed back: “There’s no place safe to walk.” “No sidewalks.” ” You have to drive to the parks”. “There’s no place to park in downtown to shop if there were shops”. I couldn’t give a good reply when they voiced objections, so often the visit would end with me adding another pill for their HTN or DM.
Then in 2001, a small group of citizens formed a steering committee to explore ways to make Mount Holly a more attractive, healthy town. I joined the group and started doing research on what makes a city healthy. A town is a living organism, like the human body. It needs fresh air and green space, transportation arteries for both cars AND people, and nutrients like social gathering places to nourish belonging and connection.
I realized that the key word here is Connection. Our town had green spaces, but they were hard to get to. We had good roads, but disconnected sidewalks that isolated neighborhoods. We had churches, and the downtown had many grand old unused buildings, but no gathering places like restaurants or attractive shops. And we had a precious asset that hardly anyone noticed day-to-day: the Catawba River, the primary river basin of the Charlotte metro area and the entire eastern border of Mount Holly. So everyone on the steering committee saw we had a lot of potential. We just needed to create a city vision that promoted our assets and developed resource connections and strategic investment.
The reader may be wondering why the city council did not see this need and this opportunity. Like a lot of government, elected officials can’t help but focus and react to the most pressing problem. How can you think strategically when the sewer lines need replacing and people are complaining about trash pick up? As one local politico said, “Don’t take time to rearrange the deck chairs when the Titanic is sinking.” The Titanic wasn’t sinking, but it felt like it was, when all you can see is the tree right in front of you.
So our committee saw the need to help local government, and the general public, think strategically, and positively, for the common good. In 2003, I chaired the creation of the Mount Holly Community Development Foundation. Our goal was to be a private advocacy group, emphasizing the assets and potential of our town. We recruited new members, held community development workshops, and gave presentations to city council. We made no demands of government, but rather showed them we could be valuable partners and stakeholders with the council. Our goal was to raise private funds that, through city council’s approval, could provide seed money for ambitious projects like a network of greenways along the river, connecting our parks and downtown, and signage grants for downtown businesses. Over the next seven years we raised over a million dollars from local and regional sources, hired a greenway designer to stoke the imagination of reluctant citizens, and helped the city secure rights-of-way for a greenway along the Catawba.
Now, twenty years later, Mount Holly has a beautiful greenway along the Catawba connecting their two largest parks. There are plans to extend the greenway north all the way to Mountain Island Lake and another city park. Multiple neighborhoods now have pedestrian access to these parks and to downtown. The pictures of happy families walking a greenway that we showed to council in 2003 are no longer a vision, but a reality. The downtown is thriving, with restaurants and boutiques. Buildings have been revitalized and are now designated as National Historic Landmarks. A regionally famous Farmer’s Market, created by the Foundation, now has its own sustaining board. The Mount Holly Historical Society, another organization birthed by the Foundation, is well-recognized for its museum and preservation activities. And most importantly, the city council and government staff have taken full ownership of the process, supported by the Foundation, which is still going strong. Several Foundation committee members are now on the council. The city motto of Mount Holly used to be “Growing in Beauty and Business”, a nice generic sentiment. But now the motto is, “Connecting Community and Nature.” I couldn’t agree more!
I am proud of my role in all this, not only because of the results, but also because of the process that I used to guide the early going. I am so thankful for my training in FM faculty development (I took the UNC Family Medicine Department fellowship in the early 90’s). The fellowship showed me how to do research, give good visual presentations, and run effective committee meetings, all essential leadership skills. I used my experience in the exam room to guide my interaction with all the stakeholders. Instead of making demands, I listened. Instead of setting the agenda, I reached consensus on the agenda, allowing all to feel they were valuable and that they belonged. I helped the group set agenda ground rules, so that the process always supported the goals. And as Dr. White emphasizes, I didn’t “lead” nearly as much as I nurtured others to lead. I retired in 2017 and left Mount Holly, but the process and the leaders still thrive.
After all the work for my hometown, I am struck by the parallels between the human body and the human community. The Mount Holly Community Development Foundation gave me a renewed purpose as a healer and advocate. I believe that the volunteer work made me a better physician and a better citizen.
Through this wonderful process I have one regret: I did not engage nearly enough with the North Carolina
Academy of Family Physicians. Looking back, I think mentoring and seeking mentoring with my family physician colleagues would have enhanced my community work and my professional support. Although the Mount Holly Foundation was rewarding, it was not without its negatives. Frequently I was the target of disenchanted naysayers in the community. Some politicos questioned my motives and values and told me that I should mind my place. People who lead should thus know that detractors come with the territory. And the remedy for that negativity comes from the support of your FM peers, who sincerely understand the joys, trials, and tribulations of being a community physician. And engaging with a statewide organization helps you maintain a sense of perspective, to see the forest in spite of the trees.
So go out there and lead. But be prepared. Hone your leadership skills. Gather and maintain your own support system. Make those vital connections with your fellow FP’s, and help nurture the Academy that nurtures you.
Lee Beatty, MD
Durham, NC