Physician leadership
Physician leadership: essential skills in a changing environment

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Abstract

Precisely because they are at the center of clinical service delivery, physicians, especially surgeons, are the ideal leaders for health care in the 21st century. Although most physicians possess the traits essential for leadership, the vast majority lacks the technical skills necessary for major leadership/management roles that will both change and empower the local healthcare service delivery environment. Such skills include strategic and tactical planning, persuasive communication, negotiation, financial decision-making, team building, conflict resolution, and interviewing. Just like surgical training, these skills too require systematic training. With patients beginning to demand value-added service, it is important for healthcare executives to identify those physicians best suited to serve as leaders within the larger healthcare system and to deliberately nurture their growth in these administrative competencies.

Section snippets

Leadership and management: similarities and differences

In order to understand the role of a physician leader, it is important to define leadership. Upon initial review, one might believe that there is little, if any, difference between leadership and management. Further examination demonstrates that managers produce predictability and order through planning, organization, control, and problem solving; in contrast, leaders stimulate change through the motivation and alignment of people with an established direction (Figure 1).5 Warren Bennis, a

The physician leader’s role

The current healthcare environment will increasingly demand that physicians be involved in administrative decisions and possess a technical skill set that was unnecessary even 10 years ago. Once autonomous, both clinically and financially, physicians are now often forced to integrate with healthcare plans and other providers for whom concepts such as teamwork and cost efficiency are of the utmost importance. In the fee-for-service model of the past, the degree of patient volume defined revenue

Leadership competencies

In order to become competent and confident in their vocation, surgeons matriculate through 4 years of medical school and, subsequently, train 4 years or more in residency and fellowships. This clinical training alone is no longer sufficient to ensure that quality care is available to patients. In conjunction, a modicum of knowledge/skills (competencies) regarding organizational behavior, finance, and leadership is necessary. Although transitioning to administrative roles may not be as

Conclusion

Physicians, especially surgeons, are the ideal leader candidates for the 21st century. Precisely because physicians are at the center of clinical service delivery, physician performance is the primary determinant of the service value (quality/cost) delivered to the patient; increasingly, the new power in the healthcare market, the payer, is demanding value-added service. Most physicians possess the behavioral characteristics essential for leadership and exhibit some degree of leadership in

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