What Makes an Effective Leader in Healthcare?

From his years of experience, Professor Brian Golden is emphatic about what makes a successful healthcare leader: “I’ve never seen a high performing health system that didn’t have significant clinical leadership,” he says. Whereas 30 years ago clinicians who transferred to management roles might be accused of moving to the "dark side," today doctors and other clinicians know that the system is driven by multiple stakeholders and complex dynamics — finance, regulation, human resources, etc. "They need someone who can speak their language, who is on their side [in a leader]."“There is a bit of ‘trust edge’ when clinicians are in leadership roles, because they have been socialized to the end purpose, to the meta purpose — which is to use resources as effectively as they can to care for patients,” asserts Golden. It’s not so much that clinicians who convert to management roles have special medical knowledge, but more that they have the credibility as people who understand the nature of the profession.