Editorial: Leading People – Managing Organizations: Contemporary Public Health Leadership

Effectively leading people engaged in the practice of public health has never been more critical than in the early years of the twenty-first century. Likewise, effectively managing the organizations in which these individuals practice the various professional disciplines of public health has become increasing important and difficult. Taken together, leading the people and managing public health organizations requires well educated and appropriately trained public health leaders and managers. Although leadership is often viewed as one of the key attributes of management, not every great managerwill be a great leader and vice versa.While some leadersmay be bornwith the inherent skills to lead, most effective leaders develop the requisite skills through education, additional training, and practice. Our aim is to focus the attention of public health practitioners on the importance of effectively leading public health organizations. Public health managers should recognize that their most valuable resource is the people they lead. The articles comprising the eBook on Leading People – Managing Organizations is composed of articles expressing the opinion of their authors of the need for effective public health leaders; perspective articles establishing their authors’ understanding of how leadership may be applied in various situations; methods articles that demonstrate how public health leadershipmay be applied, and original research articles that establish the role of public health leadership research studies.