Avoiding workplace toxicity in an aesthetic clinic business

Working with others and growing your team of aesthetic clinicians can be a significant challenge for business owners. You may start out with a close-knit, family feel, with everyone seemingly ‘on the same page’, sharing their knowledge and growing together; then one day, as numbers increase, the toxicity creeps in. People want to do their own thing, jealousy raises its head, disputes ensue, and everyone stops being a team player. What is the solution, how should you manage larger teams to avoid problems and root out toxicity before it gets chance to establish?

In this blog, Dr Tim Pearce shares the second half of a podcast with Sham Al Zahabi, a Middle Eastern aesthetic clinic owner and Cambridge cellular scientist who defied prejudice and shattered stereotypes as the daughter of celebrity singer Assala. Sham has built a thriving clinic empire in Egypt and Qatar, establishing herself as a longevity scientist, entrepreneur, and business leader.

You can catch up with first blog from this podcast on how chasing profit could be the biggest mistake when building your clinic.

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Don’t let others hold you back, surround yourself with the right people

It is a learning curve, explained Sham Al Zahadi, noting that many clinic owners and entrepreneurs share similar tales when it comes to having people in their team who do not share their values and do not have the same passions as them, and therefore cannot represent them as well as they would want.

Dr Tim was keen to understand how Sham managed to maintain boundaries in the workplace and team cohesion as the numbers grew within her clinic business. There are difficulties in balancing empathy for others (wanting to be friends) whilst addressing conflicts and enforcing discipline (as the clinic owner).

Reflecting on the problem, Sham talked about the importance of having a clear intention for your business, clear values and goals so you can surround yourself with like-minded people, and naturally filter out toxic individuals from your life and workplace. Such people do not fit and can disrupt team dynamics and morale, demotivating and stifling energy and passion. You can usually spot them early on and must act.

Despite investing financially and emotionally in her team – with training and educational opportunities and personal development – she experienced this first hand when they did not keep up their end of the relationship. Much younger at the time, it hurt, and she felt so demotivated that she even considering selling her business and returning to the science lab because of the negative influence of certain people. Fate had other ideas which thankfully curtailed the sale, eventually shiny a light on the need to filter out toxicity. After removing certain individuals, Sham’s passion and love for her work were reignited.

You are going to have to delegate, she advised, here and there, especially as you grow, but you must ensure that the person is responsible, grounded in your values and ethics, so that when they take micro-decisions for you, they will do as you would because your standards are imprinted on them. She stressed the worth of having a supportive team because a good team will unite and is essential for growth and success. Having a loving heart also attracts like-minded people who share the same principles – birds of a feather, flock together after all. Teamwork makes you stronger at spreading your message and is crucial for achieving a common goal.

How to choose the right people

Dr Tim concurred, reflecting on his own experience which caused him to initially be too focused on team members’ technical abilities – whether they could inject skilfully, consult patients effectively, or teach others – without considering the energy and attitude they brought to the workplace.

While these individuals were proficient, their negative energy caused issues and conflict within the team, which drained his motivation and made him dread going to work. This experience taught Dr Tim the importance of valuing positive energy and a good attitude, and not just technical competence when recruiting.

Patients want to come into a clinic and feel the positive energy, noted Sham, they want to feel good, so how can you ‘touch their soul’ if there is toxicity, hate, and jealousy amongst staff in the clinic.

To achieve this, she emphasised the seriousness of maintaining a positive and harmonious work environment which she achieves by enforcing a strict no-gossip policy. She acknowledged that it took time to implement, but believes it is vital for team unity, so no one is talking about anyone behind their back.

To further support the growth of her team – medics and admin staff – Sham offers coaching, meditation, yoga, and even a book club to encourage personal and professional development by reading empowering guidance books with group discussion. Their success and strength come from working with a shared sense of love and positive energy, without dramas that could harm the team dynamic.

When recruiting, Dr Tim noted that initially he approached hiring staff as an intellectual task, focusing on a checklist of skills that they needed to meet, rather than using his emotional intuition about the candidate. He recalled how his receptionist had a knack for quickly reading people, often making accurate assessments in seconds and noting character traits that he had missed during lengthy interviews. Over time, he learnt to use his intuition when evaluating candidates and to avoid the desperate desire to fill a position which could lead to choosing the wrong person.

Creating ‘the best place to work’

When growing his business, Dr Tim initially characterised his job as CEO as that of making it the best place to work, with the job of his staff being to stay in the place which they believed to be the best place to work; if they did not feel like that, they should go.

Over time, he has realised that this was only partially correct. His main job is to achieve the mission. He does that by making it the best place to work but must remain focused on the mission. At the outset, his mistake was to focus too much on trying to make his staff happy whilst forgetting about achieving the mission – you can easily fall into the trap of making someone who is dysfunctional within your team temporarily happy by changing your business mission. Business owners who are clinicians tend to be highly empathic, he suggested, which causes them to drift away from their mission to appease someone in the short team, but a combination of love and boundaries will steer the ship in a better direction.

Sham concurred; she believes a leader must balance being loved and respected with setting firm boundaries, emphasising the importance of being kind, compassionate, and leading by example, while also being strict, when necessary, even in the face of opposition from team members. She views her team like a family, where mutual respect, pride, and shared goals are key. Of course, being a good leader requires constant self-reflection and personal growth, as you strive to be a role model for your team.

You can watch the full podcast with Dr Tim Pearce and Sham Al Zahabi below. Look out for our next blog rounding up the second half of their conversation.

If you have any questions or discussion points on longevity or aesthetics, you can find Dr Tim Pearce on Instagram.

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Aesthetics Mastery Show

The Framework for Building a Clinic Empire “Chasing Profit Could Be Your Biggest Mistake”

Dr Tim says:

“In this episode, I sit down with Sham AlZahabi, a Middle Eastern Aesthetic Clinic Owner and Cambridge Cellular Scientist, who defied prejudice and shattered stereotypes as the daughter of celebrity singer Assala. Sham has built a thriving clinic empire in Egypt and Qatar, establishing herself as a longevity scientist, entrepreneur, and business leader. You’ll discover how she succeeded in the competitive aesthetics industry despite doubters, why surrounding yourself with the right team is crucial to avoiding workplace toxicity, and why chasing profit could be the very thing holding you back— (and what you SHOULD be focusing on instead).”

Watch the full Aesthetics Mastery Show here.

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Dr Tim Pearce MBChB BSc (Hons) MRCGP founded his eLearning concept in 2016 in order to provide readily accessible BOTOX® and dermal filler online courses for fellow Medical Aesthetics practitioners. His objective was to raise standards within the industry – a principle which remains just as relevant today.

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