I just recently reviewed a paper for PLoS One, a systematic and comprehensive review of medical leadership in hospital settings. I truly hope that the paper sees the light of day and is published. Of course the paper highlighted the personal and context specific features of medical leaders, none of which were really different to leadership in non-medical settings. However, the authors highlighted that medical leadership differs from general leadership most crucially in the quality and perception of credibility- clinical credibility. Without it, the ability to persuade, influence and role model is diminished.I have previously explored the importance of physician leaders maintaining a clinical practice.
Clinical 'street cred' is a necessary (yet not sufficient) ingredient for successful physician leaders.
Talk the talk and walk the walk. The rest is noise.
