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PERSPECTIVES
Developing Physician-Leaders: A Call to Action
James K. Stoller, MD, MS1,2,3,4
1Physician Leadership Development at the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA; 2Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA; 3Cleveland Clinic Respiratory Therapy, Cleveland, OH, USA; 4Respiratory and Education Institutes, A90, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
BACKGROUND: The many challenges in health care today create a special need for great leadership. However, traditional criteria for physicians advancement to leadership positions often regard academic and/or clinical accomplishments rather than the distinctive competencies needed to lead. Furthermore, physicians training can handicap their developing leadership skills. In this context, an emerging trend is for health-care institutions to offer physician-leadership programs.
METHODS AND RESULTS: This paper reviews the rationale for developing physician-leaders. Factors that underscore this need include: (1) physicians may lack inclinations to collaborate and to follow, (2) health-care organizations pose challenging environments in which to lead (e.g., because of silo-based structures, etc.), (3) traditional criteria for advancement in medicine regard clinical and/or academic skills rather than leadership competencies, and (4) little attention is currently given to training physicians regarding leadership competencies.
CONCLUSION: Definition of these competencies of ideal physician-leaders will inform the curricula and format of emerging physician leadership development programs.
KEY WORDS: leadership; physician-leader; competencies; organizational development.
J Gen Intern Med 24(7):8768DOI: 10.1007/s11606-009-1007-8 Society of General Internal Medicine 2009
INTRODUCTION
Because great leadership is a characteristic of successful organizations, developing a pipeline of leaders is a priority of frontrunner organizations. As Kotter states, Successful corporations dont wait for leaders to come along. They actively seek out people with leadership potential and expose them to career experiences designed to develop that potential.1
Another important characteristic of successful organizations and their leaders is the ability to embrace change.13
Indeed, ample evidence supports the relationship between being change-avid and business success.46 For example, in a
study of 160 companies across 40 industries, Joyce et al.6 reported that businesses with performance-oriented cultures and fast, flexible structures outperformed competitors over a 10-year period. Also, Collins and Porras5 searched for companies with enduring qualities that made them industry leaders. Such so-called visionary companies showed that $1 invested in such companies would have grown to $6,356, >15-fold higher than the general market.
Though developing great leaders and embracing change are...