Towards Distributed Leadership in the NHS?

As far back as 2005, Sir Nigel Crisp (Chief Executive of the NHS) argued for “entrepreneurial leaders” capable of bringing “vision, leadership and passion” to the NHS, and who “generate new and alternative solutions that extend the boundaries of healthcare (and) challenge factors that are growth-limiting and refuse to accept the status quo”i. Harnessing the language of entrepreneurship was a clever PR ploy, creating associations between NHS transformation and dynamic private sector business innovators. The problem is that nobody really took the time to find out why entrepreneurial behaviour was so difficult to unleash in the NHS.