Teamwork: the art of being a leader and a team player

It is impossible to ignore the focus in the past few years on clinical leadership both in the pro­ fessional literature and in government papers, most notably the landmark Darzi Report, also known as the NHS Next Stage Review (Darzi 2008). Lord Darzi’s report set the scene in terms of high­ lighting the importance of involving clinicians in leadership roles, which in subsequent years has been developed further as a concept by professional institutions across the UK. Of note, the review also emphasised the delivery of healthcare by teams across patient pathways as key to improving quality of care (Darzi 2008; Stanton 2010). Recent Advances articles have also focused on the need for psychiatrists to acquire excellent leadership skills (Garg 2011; Brown, 2013). The development of clinical leadership skills has been formally recognised as a necessary part of training for doctors and the relevant competencies have been outlined in the Medical Leadership Competency Framework (MLCF), introduced by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement in 2008 (NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement 2010). The MLCF is now embedded in the different specialty training postgraduate curricula, including psychiatry (Royal College of Psychiatrists 2010a). ‘Working with others’ is one of the key MLCF domains and contains four key competencies for working in teams (Box 1).