Collaborative Leadership for the Transformation of Health Systems

Abstract

Globally, collaborative leadership has gained much attention in academic fora as a concept to achieve socially accountable education and health systems change for improved regional and local health outcomes. The authors of the Lancet Commission 2010 report, Health professionals for a new century: Transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world, put forward their vision of global health equity for high-quality comprehensive health services (Frenk et al., 2010). To achieve this vision, they advised that the reform needed in health professional education must be led by changes in two proposed directions: 1) transformative learning, and 2) interdependence in education. Transformative learning is best understood in the context of three successive and interconnected forms of learning: informative, formative and transformative. Informative learning is the process of acquiring knowledge and skills. Formative learning includes processes of socializing students about professional values. Transformative learning ‘is about developing leadership attributes; its purpose is to produce enlightened change agents’ (Frenk et al., 2010: 1924). The Commission posited that transformative learning would position health leaders to work collaboratively across professional, system, regulatory and local boundaries to lead change toward ‘locally responsive and globally connected teams’ (Frenk et al., 2010: 1924). Their second desired direction for educational