Member since September 2026
Lauren Weber, MD, is a cardiologist, physician executive, military veteran, and leadership strategist who believes leadership is far too important to belong only to people with titles.
After 14 years of service in the U.S. Navy, including operational medicine and leadership alongside Marine aviation, Lauren brought the lessons she learned about leadership, influence, and decision-making under pressure into healthcare. Today, she is a practicing cardiologist, physician leader, and Chief Strategy Officer of All Levels Leadership, a leadership development company focused on helping healthcare professionals build the skills to move important work forward—even when they don't have formal authority.
Lauren's work focuses on the human side of complex organizations: influence, relational leadership, conflict, feedback, and the everyday behaviors that shape organizational culture.
At the center of her work is a simple idea: leadership isn't something we wait to be given. It's something we practice.
I am passionate about changing who believes they have the right—and the responsibility—to lead.
Healthcare is full of extraordinarily capable people who see what needs to change but don't believe they have enough authority, the right title, or the right seat at the table to do anything about it. I've also watched organizations invest heavily in the people at the top while overlooking the enormous leadership capacity that exists everywhere else.
That's the reason I do this work.
I want people to understand the power they already have: the power to engage instead of withdraw, to challenge something without destroying a relationship, to influence without coercing, and to make the space around them better even when they can't control the entire system.
That's also why we built All Levels Leadership. We teach the leadership skills people need to be effective at every level of healthcare—because leadership has always been ours to practice.
I think one of my earliest lessons in leadership happened when I was a medical student—which is ironic, because I had absolutely no authority.
I was on my general surgery rotation, scrubbed into a case with a visiting surgeon. As the procedure progressed, it became clear that he was struggling with the laparoscopic equipment. His frustration was rising, the tension in the operating room was palpable, and I started exchanging the kind of looks with the nurses and anesthesiologist that said: *Something isn't right.*
I was also a medical student. I was acutely aware that I was the least experienced and least powerful person in that room.
Eventually, I made an excuse to scrub out. I stepped into the hallway and called the chief resident, whom I trusted immensely.
"I know I'm just a medical student, and I know I don't know anything," I told him, "but things aren't going well down here. I think we need your help."
A few minutes later, he walked into the OR. He took in the room, made eye contact with the team, and then did something I've never forgotten.
He didn't confront the surgeon. Instead, he said he was nearing graduation and would really value the opportunity to get another laparoscopic case under his belt. Could he scrub in?
The surgeon agreed.
The chief resident scrubbed in, the operation proceeded safely, and everyone walked out of that room with their dignity intact.
Afterward, he pulled me aside. He told me he appreciated what I had been trying to do—and then cautioned me that I needed to be careful if I was going to challenge an attending physician.
It was good advice. But what has stayed with me even more is what happened in that operating room.
The nurses and anesthesiologist recognized that something wasn't right. A medical student with no authority decided she couldn't ignore it. A chief resident understood exactly how to intervene without unnecessarily diminishing someone else. None of us was "the leader" in that room. And yet each of us influenced what happened next.
Years later, I would give that kind of leadership a name: **Undercover Leadership.**
It's the leadership happening all around us, often exercised by people without the title, authority, or even the recognition of being a leader. It lives in the decision to stay engaged, to take responsibility for how we show up, and to use whatever influence we have in service of something that matters.
That day, what mattered was the patient on the table. And everyone in that room had a role in what happened next.
I didn't set out to start a leadership company. I set out to understand why so many smart, committed people struggled to create change inside organizations they cared deeply about.
My first lessons in leadership came in the military. Later, as a physician and healthcare leader, I encountered a very different environment but a surprisingly familiar problem: the person with the most expertise wasn't always the person with the most authority, and the person with the most authority wasn't necessarily the person who could create movement.
I became fascinated by the space between the two.
Healthcare talks constantly about needing better leaders, but much of leadership development is still aimed at people after they receive a title. Yet every day I watched people without formal authority shape whether teams functioned, whether change succeeded, whether conflict became productive or destructive, and whether the people around them stayed engaged.
That insight became the seed for All Levels Leadership.
We started with a different premise: don't wait until someone becomes "a leader" to teach them how to lead. Give people the skills to understand themselves, build relationships, navigate conflict, communicate across differences, and influence effectively wherever they are.
The deeper we've gone into this work, the more convinced I've become that leadership isn't primarily about position. It's about how we show up, what we practice, and what happens around us because we were there.
That's the work I want to spend my career doing.
I think one of my earliest lessons in leadership happened when I was a medical student—which is ironic, because I had absolutely no authority.
I was on my general surgery rotation, scrubbed into a case with a visiting surgeon. As the procedure progressed, it became clear that he was struggling with the laparoscopic equipment. His frustration was rising, the tension in the operating room was palpable, and I started exchanging the kind of looks with the nurses and anesthesiologist that said: *Something isn't right.*
I was also a medical student. I was acutely aware that I was the least experienced and least powerful person in that room.
Eventually, I made an excuse to scrub out. I stepped into the hallway and called the chief resident, whom I trusted immensely.
"I know I'm just a medical student, and I know I don't know anything," I told him, "but things aren't going well down here. I think we need your help."
A few minutes later, he walked into the OR. He took in the room, made eye contact with the team, and then did something I've never forgotten.
He didn't confront the surgeon. Instead, he said he was nearing graduation and would really value the opportunity to get another laparoscopic case under his belt. Could he scrub in?
The surgeon agreed.
The chief resident scrubbed in, the operation proceeded safely, and everyone walked out of that room with their dignity intact.
Afterward, he pulled me aside. He told me he appreciated what I had been trying to do—and then cautioned me that I needed to be careful if I was going to challenge an attending physician.
It was good advice. But what has stayed with me even more is what happened in that operating room.
The nurses and anesthesiologist recognized that something wasn't right. A medical student with no authority decided she couldn't ignore it. A chief resident understood exactly how to intervene without unnecessarily diminishing someone else. None of us was "the leader" in that room. And yet each of us influenced what happened next.
Years later, I would give that kind of leadership a name: **Undercover Leadership.**
It's the leadership happening all around us, often exercised by people without the title, authority, or even the recognition of being a leader. It lives in the decision to stay engaged, to take responsibility for how we show up, and to use whatever influence we have in service of something that matters.
That day, what mattered was the patient on the table. And everyone in that room had a role in what happened next.
I didn't set out to start a leadership company. I set out to understand why so many smart, committed people struggled to create change inside organizations they cared deeply about.
My first lessons in leadership came in the military. Later, as a physician and healthcare leader, I encountered a very different environment but a surprisingly familiar problem: the person with the most expertise wasn't always the person with the most authority, and the person with the most authority wasn't necessarily the person who could create movement.
I became fascinated by the space between the two.
Healthcare talks constantly about needing better leaders, but much of leadership development is still aimed at people after they receive a title. Yet every day I watched people without formal authority shape whether teams functioned, whether change succeeded, whether conflict became productive or destructive, and whether the people around them stayed engaged.
That insight became the seed for All Levels Leadership.
We started with a different premise: don't wait until someone becomes "a leader" to teach them how to lead. Give people the skills to understand themselves, build relationships, navigate conflict, communicate across differences, and influence effectively wherever they are.
The deeper we've gone into this work, the more convinced I've become that leadership isn't primarily about position. It's about how we show up, what we practice, and what happens around us because we were there.
That's the work I want to spend my career doing.