Five Ideas for the Development of Successful Physician Leaders

Abstract

An increasing number of physicians are embarking on a pathway from clinical practice to senior healthcare leadership positions that historically have been held by seasoned nonmedical or allied health professionals. Successful medical practitioners who are energetic, have a breadth of interests, and desire a broader range of influence are logical candidates for promotion to leadership positions in healthcare and are the ones most likely to put themselves forward for consideration in such roles.These individuals are chosen because of the characteristics that made them good clinicians or leaders of other physicians rather than deep experience in the larger world of healthcare administration. The resulting potential for mismatch of skill sets is widely believed to be a primary cause of failure in the role. Regardless of whether this assumption is a self-fulfilling prophecy promoted by those who seek to avoid disruption of the status quo, senior leaders who value the entrance of this new group of leaders must take great care in preparing them for success in interacting with unfamiliar constituencies, such as senior administrative leaders in nursing or finance, in the complex and continually evolving healthcare landscape.This column presents five key ideas that might inform the successful development of physician leaders.CONSIDERATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICIAN LEADERS: FIVE IDEASIdea 1: Prepare Physicians for Specific New Leadership Roles Rather Than an Undefined Future RolePhysician leader candidates share responsibility with senior leaders for thoughtful promotion on the basis of their (1) natural potential for the intended role and (2) preparation in areas where technical knowledge or new leadership skills are required. Both parties must understand the need to identify appropriate roles and the means for intentional professional development to fulfill leadership duties. Attention to career planning and leadership development and the alignment of a physician leader's talents, energies, and key motivators with the role help ensure a higher likelihood of success. A list of personal qualities deemed critical to success in a leadership position could be developed and compared with candidates' qualities. One way to determine key personal qualities is through the Birkman Method, which applies metrics to the following areas (Birkman International, 2016):* Usual behavior* Underlying needs* Stress behavior* Interests* Occupation* Management styles* Work environmentMany organizations have established structured programs, such as my institution's R. Timothy Stack Piedmont Leadership Academy, to develop their own physician talent. Master's degree programs in hospital or business administration are other common pathways for leadership development. The caveat to using such programs is that they typically provide broad-based leadership training rather than goal-based training. They rarely seek to define the specific roles that potential leaders might one day occupy, and they tend to offer no explicit plan for movement of individuals into such positions.On the other hand, the cultivation of new leaders at General Electric (GE) under Jack Welch, as described in Jack: Straight From the Gut, is a remarkable example of purposeful leadership development (Welch & Byrne, 2003). At GE, aspiring leaders study formal curricula, but they also are assigned to work in various defined roles in GE's five companies in both domestic and foreign offices under the tutelage of a variety of managers. A formal, semiquantitative evaluation process is used for determining advancement. The Boeing Company, Microsoft, and other global organizations take a similar approach to developing high-potential leaders.Of course, extrapolating the GE model to the development of physician leaders is difficult. Most healthcare organizations are not multinational corporations with large numbers of management positions, and physicians are not highly mobile. …