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This article, a product of an IIMHL‐brokered partnership, concerns the requisites of today's health services information systems, and how an organisation in London, Ontario, Canada is responding to the addictions and mental health service information needs of the citizens of the Province of Ontario. The piece draws a parallel between theory regarding how stored data can be translated into information, knowledge, understanding and, ultimately, wisdom, and the practical needs of information and referral organisations as per their objective of providing their consumers with the value of current and accurate information. In the case of ConnexOntario ‐ funded by Ontario's Ministry of Health and Long‐Term Care ‐ the keys to this value are the powerful database that is used to house the data, and the innovative ‘front‐end application’ ‐ ConnexOntario eServices ‐ that allows users to input, retrieve and present the information as necessary. An emphasis is also placed on how eServices, in concert with the ConnexOntario database, helps promote the principle of mental health service leadership for its stakeholders, which is relevant as per the stated objective of the IIMHL.

The Health Service Executive in Ireland seeks to further develop healthcare in the community. It has identified that this reform requires developing leadership amongst the staff. This study aims to identify what kind of leadership staff in community healthcare observe in practice and their leadership preferences. The core objective has been to identify the readiness of the organisation to implement the adopted national policy of integrated community care reform in terms of leadership development.

An online cross-sectional survey was conducted using the Organisational Cultural Assessment Instrument, based on the Competing Values Framework. This tool identifies four overarching leadership types: Clan (Collaborative), Adhocracy (Creative), Market (Competitive) and Hierarchy (Controlling). Participants (n = 445) were a representative sample of regional community health care employees. They were asked to identify presently observed leadership and preferred leadership in practice. The statistical analysis emphasised a comparison of observed and preferred leadership types.

Participants reported the current prevailing leadership type as Market (M = 34.38, SD = 6.22) and Hierarchical (M = 34.38, SD = 22.62), whilst the preferred or future style was overwhelmingly Clan (M = 40.38, SD = 18.08). Differences were significant (all p’s < 0.001). The overall outcome indicates a predominance of controlling and competitive leadership and a lack of collaborative leadership to implement the planned reform.

During reform in healthcare, leadership in practice must be aligned to the reform strategy, demonstrating collaboration, flexibility and support for innovation. This unique study demonstrates the importance of examining leadership type and competencies to indicate readiness to deliver national community health care reform.

The emergence of COVID-19 has exacerbated and spurred the growth of mental health issues in ways that have challenged mental health workers tremendously. The complex nature of COVID-19 has made the need of mental health professionals extremely important. Hospital ward overcrowding, social distancing requirements, sequestrations, limits to face-to-face consultations have created barriers to mental health access, especially those in need of Certified Peer Recovery Specialists. Certified Peer Recovery Specialists play a critical role in the treatment of mental illness through their support and engagement of those recovering from substance abuse. Many in this role are hired because they have a strong skillset for help-oriented clinical work but are often challenged, especially in times like this to development and demonstrate leadership skills. This paper explores the nature and need to develop leadership skills and leadership challenges for people in this field through interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and a content analysis of the current and seminal literature.

This paper explores the nature and need to develop leadership skills and leadership challenges for people in mental health through IPA and a content analysis of the current and seminal literature.

The essential necessity to invest in the cultivation of peer recovery specialists and mental health professionals as organizational leaders.

Hospital ward overcrowding, social distancing requirements, sequestrations, limits to face- to- face consultations have created barriers to mental health access, especially those in need of Certified Peer Recovery Specialists. Certified Peer Recovery Specialists play a critical role in the treatment of mental illness through their support and engagement of those recovering from substance abuse.

Although communal forms of leadership are being called for to provide contemporary organizations with more responsive leadership platforms, the paper can find no compelling description as to how such leadership might develop in a world of hierarchy. The purpose of this paper is to fill this void.

Attempting to comprehend the sharing of leadership will require contemplation of unconventional approaches in opposition to the dominant logic associated with conventional organizational leadership. One current example of such unorthodox deliberation is the emerging awareness of the Grateful Dead's influence on business management and leadership. Accordingly, the paper examined and interpreted the experiences and expressed beliefs of Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead to offer a conceptualization of how shared leadership could emerge in traditional organizational settings.

The analysis indicates that Jerry Garcia exhibited aspects of transformational leadership, servant leadership, and authentic leadership that allowed him to influence the environment needed for the emergence of shared leadership.

As a single case study, the primary limitation is one of generalizability. The paper accepts the trade-off, however, due to the significant conceptual insights available with a case methodology.

Without greater understanding of how shared leadership might unfold practitioners will assume the construct of shared leadership is laudable but naïve. The paper must begin developing plausible conceptualizations if the notion of sharing leadership is to be taken more seriously in organizations.

The paper offers a counterintuitive, counterculture conceptualization of how shared leadership could emerge and flourish in traditional hierarchical settings.

Given the substantial resources of the United States, the failure of the American federal response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been both tragic and avoidable. The authors frame this response as an artifact of power-addiction among administration officials and examine the US federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of maladaptive denial by government officials, including President Trump.

The authors use qualitative research methods for this study by analyzing key events, public statements by administration officials from multiple credible media reports and US federal government websites. The authors analyzed these data using Weidner and Purohit's (2009) model describing maladaptive denial in organizations and power-addiction among leaders.

The authors' analysis identifies maladaptive denial – and the concomitant power-addiction – as significantly contributing to the Trump administration's failed response to COVID-19. Maladaptive denial and power-addiction characterized Trump as a candidate and for the three years of his presidency preceding the COVID-19 crisis. Whatever normative “guardrails” or checks and balances existed in the American system to restrict the administration's behavior before the crisis were ill-equipped to significantly prevent or alter the failed federal response to the pandemic.

The article applies the model of maladaptive denial in organizations (Weidner and Purohit, 2009) to the public sector, and explores the lengths to which power-addicted leaders and regimes can violate the public's trust in institutions in a crisis, even in the US, a liberal democracy characterized by freedom of political expression. While organizations and change initiatives may fail for a variety of reasons, this case revealed the extent to which maladaptive denial can permeate a government – or any organization – and its response to a crisis.

When Dr Constance Scharff met Wes Geer, founding member of the band Hed PE and former touring guitarist for Korn, she was already a recognized figure in the addiction and mental health treatment field. In particular, she is known for her insight and leadership assisting healthcare professionals working at the nexus of addiction and trauma. It was not a surprise to her when Geer asked her to join Rock to Recovery, to help expand its business.

As she stepped into her leadership role with the charity, she faced a unique set of challenges. One of the musicians she worked with overdosed and died, and changes in regulations hurt accessibility to addiction treatment. Almost overnight, the company lost a significant amount of business, but more damaging was the potential for the groups’ mental health to be undermined. This chapter describes Dr Scharff’s evolving leadership during those losses and how she helped the group develop and ultimately thrive.

Dr Caroline Heldman, Chair of the Critical Theory and Social Justice Department at Occidental College, analyzes Dr Scharff’s experiences. She reveals how it is crucial in organizations like Rock to Recovery for leaders to embrace a compassionate leadership model. She also details the ways inwhich Dr Scharff had to overcome gendered leadership stereotypes to be an effective member of the Rock to Recovery team. Dr Heldman holds special insight into Rock to Recovery, as it was her brother, Christian, who died in 2018.

The Executive Leadership and Management Programme (ELMP) and the advanced programme (AELMP) were founded in New Zealand in 2004. The Blueprint Centre for Learning was contracted by the then Mental Health Workforce Development Programme to develop and deliver a leadership and management programme for staff in the mental health and addictions sector. The programme is now managed under Te Pou (the National Center for Mental Health Research, Information and Workforce Development). The Blueprint Centre for Learning is the only New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and ISO 9001 accredited training provider focusing on mental health in New Zealand. Blueprint's focus is on ‘living the learning' and the organisation has a spirit of ‘passion for people and potential’. While some basic statistics indicate the success of the programmes, it is timely to conduct a more in‐depth qualitative evaluation of them. Thus, the aim of this project was to examine the outcomes (personal, professional and organisational) perceived to have occurred as a result of attending the programmes.

Since 2002, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Ontario, Canada, has been working closely with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to implement mental health capacity‐building focused on primary health care. From an equity perspective, this article seeks to critically analyze the process and key results of this capacity‐building effort and to identify various implications for the future.

This analysis of capacity‐building approaches is based on a critical review of existing documents such as needs assessments and evaluation reports, as well as reflective discussion. Previous health equity literature is used as a framework for analysis.

More than 1,000 professionals have been engaged in various kinds of training in Chile, Peru, Brazil, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Trinidad and Tobago. These capacity‐building initiatives have had an impact on primary health care from both an equity and systems perspective because participants were engaged at all stages of the process and implementation lessons incorporated into the final efforts. Stigma was also reduced through the collaborations.

Using concrete examples of capacity‐building in mental primary healthcare in LAC, as well as evidence gathered from the literature, this article demonstrates how primary healthcare can play a strong role in addressing health equity and human rights protection for people with mental health and/or substance abuse problems.