Complex leadership competency in health care: towards framing a theory of practice

Abstract

Many analysts characterize the health-care industry and health-care systems as complex adaptive organizations. New hybrid organizational forms are emerging that exhibit diverse relational-structural alliances between physicians, hospitals and/or insurers, over which administrators have limited control and restricted ability to predict or direct. Meeting the challenges in leading and managing health-care systems as complex adaptive organizations calls for additional competency in what theorists determine as 'complex leadership'. This research study presents findings on complex leadership principles that augment those competencies that health-care administration education scholars recognize and recommend as necessary for future leaders in health care to master. The findings from this study make two contributions: first, they ground complex leader theory, derived from complexity science, in empirical data; and second, the findings add to a growing body of literature investigating the underlying logics of the complex adaptive organization and the innovative ways complex leaders are developing practices and principles in leading and managing these new, emerging organizations.

A Systematic Review of Physician Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

“…Many authors endorsed EI as an important component of leadership development for physicians in general, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] for successfully navigating the business of medicine for physician executives, [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] in academic settings, [49][50][51] for developing effective social networks in health care, 52 as a leadership component across specialties, [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65] and as a way of partnering with patients. 66,67 Two studies (1 a...…”

The application of systems thinking concepts, methods, and tools to global health practices: An analysis of case studies

“…Other tools used in the case studies included concept mapping, stakeholder analysis, sense making, adjacent possibilities, horizon thinking, reflective adaptive process, conceptual models, decision analysis and impact analysis, the Likert profile, personal management interviews, key informant interviews, and actor‐network theory …”

“…A CAS perspective suggests that leadership should not be controlling but should allow agents and systems to be adaptive and change over time by encouraging creative behaviour . Leaders in the case studies who adopted ST were able to equip others to be leaders so that when encountering evolving situations, they could respond in an innovative and independent way at their level of influence . The reverse can also be true; when leadership fails to integrate key stakeholders through the process of recognizing the differing perspectives of these leaders on the complex nature of the situations encountered, adoption and subsequent policy impact can be suboptimized …”

Improving clinical leadership and management in the NHS

“…32 Health care systems are now recognized as complex adaptive organizations 33 however many educational healthcare scholars have identified what they believe to be necessary competencies of future leaders. [34][35][36] The f indings are remarkably consistent and include interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence, technical [managerial] skills (in operations, finance, information technology, human resources and strategic planning), industry [corporate] knowledge (both clinical process and health-care institutions), analytical and conceptual reasoning, skills in teamwork, communication and negotiation and an ability to adapt to the changing environment.…”