At the time of writing, the author was a modern matron in a surgical division of an NHS teaching hospital in London. This article considers the differences between leadership and management, and discusses the skills required by modern matrons to lead safe and successful clinical services. It also examines three leadership styles – transactional, transformational and situational – and their rele...

It is difficult to disagree with the general argument that successful health reform requires a significant degree of policy capacity or that all players in the policy game need to move beyond self-interested advocacy. However, an overly broad definition of policy capacity is a problem. More important perhaps, health reform inevitably requires not just policy capacity but political leadership an...

The Neolithic was marked by a transition from small and relatively egalitarian groups to much larger groups with increased stratification. But, the dynamics of this remain poorly understood. It is hard to see how despotism can arise without coercion, yet coercion could not easily have occurred in an egalitarian setting. Using a quantitative model of evolution in a patch-structured population, w...

There is a trend in health systems around the world to place great emphasis on and faith in improving 'leadership'. Leadership has been defined in many ways and the elitist implications of traditional notions of leadership sit uncomfortably with modern healthcare organisations. The concept of distributed leadership incorporates inclusivity, collectiveness and collaboration, with the result that...

A surgical oncologist should teach at the undergraduate or postgraduate level, play a leadership role in oncology in either the community hospital or in an academic institution, encourage or participate in basic or clinical oncologic research, and foster interdisciplinary cooperation with the other oncologic specialists. The surgical oncologist should take an active role in educating the genera...

This paper examines the factors that have enabled the Healthy Cities Noarlunga (HCN) initiative to be sustainable over 18 years (1987-2005). Sustainability related to the ability of the initiative to continue to operate continuously in a manner that indicated its existence was accorded value by the community and local service providers. The analysis is based on a narrative review of 29 document...

Leadership has always been an area of interest since time immemorial. Nevertheless, scientific theories regarding leadership started to appear only from the beginning of the 20th century. Modern theories of leadership such as strategic leadership theory emerged as early as the 1980s when outdated theories of behavioral contingency were questioned, resulting in the beginning of a shift in focus ...

BACKGROUND A number of program-level and counselor-level factors are known to impact the adoption of treatment innovations. While program leadership is considered a primary factor, the importance of leadership among clinical staff to innovation transfer is less known. Objectives included explore (1) the influence of two leadership roles, program director and individual counselor, on recent trai...

PURPOSE To identify the personal strengths of Canadian physical therapists who hold leadership positions and compare them with the strengths of Canadian physical therapists who do not occupy positions of leadership. METHODS A quantitative, cross-sectional online survey was distributed to registered Canadian physical therapists. We used the Clifton StrengthsFinder to evaluate 34 characteristic...