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Beyond assessing the human resources, surgeons have to learn how to adapt
the medical strategy as the environment changes. Roles may stay the same, but
different people may have to come in to play these roles. Surgical leaders must
recruit, train, develop, and interchange people without losing the energy and
capabilities of surgical and other teams. Other clinical team members may need
help evaluating their style and effectiveness. Leaders must also focus on coach-
ing and developing future clinical leaders and offering continuous leadership
education.
For surgeons not prepared to lead, clinical leadership training is essential. Topics
for conversation include strategies to:
- Build a group of professionals into a high-performance unit committed to a clear
and challenging direction - Perform an initial team briefing (or huddle)
- Give feedback and have difficult conversations
- Coach a nurse or a resident
- Bring a new technology or surgical procedure into the hospital
- Build commitment to quality and safety goals
In order for leaders to learn these things, we must present the right concepts,
tools, and models. I will address which theories or practices to teach next.
Teaching What They Need To Know: Leadership Models Not
Leadership Theory^17
We are interested in teaching surgeons how to understand their own behavior so
they can reflect and diagnose the range of leadership situations they will confront.
As faculty, we want to introduce usable concepts and tools, and to teach leaders to
self-reflect for purposes of training and development. Consequently, the models that
we teach should reconstruct realities encountered, and should be grounded in
assumptions and behaviors that can be applied.
The theory and practice of leadership has a long and rich history [ 44 ]. Reviewing
the last 90 years of literature, one can see that just about every method and research
technique has been used to study leadership. While progress has been made, one
academic, in analyzing the published evidence, found a “bewildering mass of find-
ings” [ 5 ]. Other social scientists refer to their own body of leadership research as a
“long and frustrating odyssey.”
(^17) These views are based on over 30 years’ experience as a professor working with physician
and nonphysician executives in health care as well as executives from other industries. I have con-
ducted observational and ethnographic studies of hospital CEOs with MD and non-MD back-
grounds [ 9 ]. I conducted quantitative studies of health leaders using multi-rater instruments. I also
conducted qualitative leadership studies of surgeons, general managers, symphony conductors,
and religious leaders.
J.A. Chilingerian