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This paper aims to examine the views of physicians in senior management positions regarding the distinctive characteristics and roles of leaders in the Israeli health-care system and what might be the interactions between management and leadership.

In total, 13 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with physicians in senior management positions. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using the qualitative-phenomenological method.

Interviewees discerned leaders as exhibiting traits of transformational leadership and managers, as expressing characteristics of transactional leadership. Most interviewees asserted that physicians should act as social leaders promoting public health and equality in health care, beyond their clinical practice. They agreed that physicians should fill most senior positions in the health-care system, provided they undergo appropriate training in management, leadership and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Interviewees revealed gaps between the aspiration to lead, perceptions of physicians as leaders and what occurs in reality: physicians wish to assume leadership roles in the health-care system and emphasize the qualities of transformative leadership, but medical education does not include leadership training. Therefore, there is a need to develop training programs for physicians in management and leadership. There is also a need to integrate physicians from various communities to promote local leadership in the health-care field and to reduce disparities. The consideration of health-care leadership is especially applicable in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has placed the question of leadership within and outside of the medical community in a broader social context.

This chapter seeks to increase our understanding of health care employees' perceptions of effective and ineffective leadership behavior within their organization.

Interviews were conducted with 59 employees working in a diversity of positions within the case study hospital. Interviewees were asked to cite behaviors of both an effective and an ineffective leader in their organization. They were also asked to clarify whether their example described the behavior of a formal or informal leader. Grounded theory data analysis techniques were used and findings were interpreting using existing leadership behavior theories.

(1) There was a consistent link between effective leadership and relationally oriented behaviors. (2) Employees identified both formal and informal leadership within their hospital. (3) There were both similarities and differences with respect to the types of behaviors attributed to informal versus formal leaders. (4) Informants cited a number of leadership behaviors not yet accounted for in the leadership behavior literature (e.g., ‘hands on’, ‘professional’, ‘knows organization’). (5) Ineffective leadership behavior is not simply the opposite of effective leadership.

Findings support the following ideas: (1) there may be a relationship between the type of job held by employees in health care organizations and their perceptions of leader behavior, and (2) leadership behavior theories are not yet comprehensive enough to account for the varieties of leadership behavior in a health care organization. This study is limited by the fact that it focused on only those leadership theories that considered leader behavior.

There are two practical implications for health care organizations: (1) leaders should recognize that the type of behavior an employee prefers from a leader may vary by follower job group (e.g., nurses may prefer relational behavior more than managerial staff do), and (2) organizations could improve leader development programs and evaluation tools by identifying ineffective leadership behaviors that they want to see reduced within their workplace.

Health care organizations could use these findings to identify informal leaders in their organization and invest in training and development for them in hopes that these individuals will have positive direct or indirect impacts on patient, staff, and organizational outcomes through their informal leadership role.

This study contributes to research and practice on leadership behavior in health care organizations by explicitly considering effective and ineffective leader behavior preferences across multiple job types in a health care organization. Such a study has not previously been done despite the multi-professional nature of health care organizations.

This study aims to examine the effect of motivating language on employee performance and assesses the mediating roles of organisational citizenship behaviour and employee engagement between motivating language and employee performance in the Indian health-care sector, which is a highly demanding work environment, wherein employee burnout is high.

The study was in the context of COVID-19 pandemic set for health-care workers in India. To collect data and test the proposed research model, 328 questionnaires were respondent by multi-level health-care professionals from private and government hospitals in North India.

The findings suggest that leader’s motivating language is crucial for health-care leaders, inducing employee’s performance in context to patientcare, safety and satisfaction. Underpinning theory of leader member exchange substantiates that the role of leader is pivotal in daily interaction with the stakeholders. Self-determination theory of motivation is determined by psychological needs satisfaction inducing employee engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour, amplified through the leader’s motivating language, resulting into improved patientcare and patient safety. The findings state that leader’s motivating language impacts the high culture context like health-care professionals, as observed in the Indian health-care sector during COVID-19. The findings are indicative of developing non-cognitive personality traits for managerial skills.

The study substantiates the pivotal role of the leader’s communication with stakeholders such as patients/attendants and health-care staff. The findings, which are an indicator of patientcare, as an outcome of patient compliance, will be indicative of developing the non-cognitive skills in the personality traits of managerial skills, inducing patients’ trust in their health-care providers, using motivating language. Therefore, the health-care professionals must be trained in the application of motivating language with stakeholders, namely, patients/attendants and staff.

The findings state that leader’s motivating language impacts on employees of high culture context like health-care professionals, as observed in the Indian health-care sector during the recent global medical emergency of COVID-19, whereas the earlier studies posited leader’s motivating language to be effective on employees with low-cultural context. The role of leader is pivotal in daily interaction with the stakeholders, namely, patients/attendants and health-care staff.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for the service line management approach in health care. Service line management is increasingly utilized by US health care organizations as an innovative method for providing the needed stimulus to increase viability and profitability for the ailing health care sector.

Using current literature, this study describes a paradigm shift from traditional health care management approaches to focus on the importance of a service line management approach with its specific emphasis on competencies of leaders.

Four essential competencies – conceptual, participation, interpersonal, and leadership – must be gained by leaders to bring about organizational growth.

Health care managers must understand and practice these four key competencies to become effective health care leaders.

This paper provides useful information on the need for the service line management approach in health care.

The purpose of this qualitative research study is to explore health-care providers’ perspectives and experiences with a specific focus on supports reported to be effective during the COVID-19 pandemic. The overarching goal of this study is to inform leaders and leadership regarding provision of supports that could be implemented during times of crisis and in the future beyond the pandemic.

Data were collected by semi-structured, conversational interviews with a sample of 33 health-care professionals, including Registered Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Registered Psychologists, Registered Dieticians and an Occupational Therapist.

Three major themes emerged from the interview data: (1) professional and personal challenges for health-care providers, (2) physical and mental health impacts on health-care providers and (3) providing supports for health-care providers. The third theme was further delineated into three sub-theses: formal resources and supports, informal resources and supports and leadership strategies.

Health-care leaders are advised to pay attention to the voices of the people they are leading. It is important to know what supports health-care providers need in times of crisis. Situating the needs of health-care providers in the Carter and Bogue Model of Leadership Influence for Health Professional Wellbeing (2022) can assist leaders to deliberately focus on aspects of providers’ wellbeing and remain cognizant of the supports needed both during a crisis and when circumstances are unremarkable.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which the LEADS Framework guided health-care leaders through organizational change and the COVID-19 pandemic in a western Canadian province.

A qualitative exploratory inquiry assessed the extent to which health leaders applied competencies that aligned with the LEADS Framework. A purposeful sample of 22 health-care leaders participated in the study representing senior, mid-level and front-line health-care leaders in various health-care organizations to ensure diverse representation of leader competencies. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews to collect the data and used Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase approach to guide data analysis.

The analysis suggests that health-care leaders found Engaging with Others and Developing Coalitions were the most critical themes of the LEADS Framework for change management and for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings reveal that during transformational change and a crisis context, leaders embrace relational approaches to adapt and improve performance in dynamic organizations.

These findings have implications for a relational approach to improve teamwork and decrease emotional strain; a focus on mobilizing and sharing power with nurses; and educational programs to advance relational and self-management skills, shared leadership, communication, change management, human resource and talent development as critical learning components for current and future health-care leaders.

The LEADS Framework is used to examine how health-care leaders responded to transformational change in the organization while situated in a pandemic context.

This study aimed to describe nurse leaders’ experiences of remote leadership in health care sector.

Semistructured interviews were conducted among nurse leaders (N = 12) between January and March 2022. All of the interviewees had experiences of remote leadership and worked as immediate – (n = 5) or middle-level (n = 7) leaders in health care organizations across four provinces in Finland. The collected data were analyzed by inductive content analysis.

The leaders had experienced a rapid transition to remote leadership and highlighted the need for guidelines and joint discussions with different stakeholders. The interviewees felt that working life has changed in the last two years and that remote leadership will now be a key part of leadership in health care. The leaders’ experiences highlighted how important trust is in remote leadership. Furthermore, the interviewees pointed out a need for face-to-face contact and described other good practices for remote leadership. Overseeing work-related well-being was also stressed as important in the remote context; however, the interviewees expressed a need for instructions and tools concerning the management of employee well-being. The sudden change to remote leadership was not only described as interesting but also challenging, which has affected the leaders’ work-related well-being. Support – both from the organization and other employees – was found to be crucial to health care leaders’ work-related well-being.

The current study complements the little-researched topic of remote leadership in the health care sector. The results provide insights that can be used to develop remote leadership and/or guide future research.

Emphasis on quality and reducing costs has led many health-care organizations to reconfigure their management, process, and quality control infrastructures. Many are lean, a management philosophy with roots in manufacturing industries that emphasizes elimination of waste. Successful lean implementation requires systemic change and strong leadership. Despite the importance of leadership to successful lean implementation, few researchers have probed the question of ideal leadership attributes to achieve lean thinking in health care. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into applicable attributes for lean leaders in health care.

The authors systematically reviewed the literature on principles of leadership and, using Dombrowski and Mielke’s (2013) conceptual model of lean leadership, developed a parallel theoretical model for lean leadership in health care.

This work contributes to the development of a new framework for describing leadership attributes within lean management of health care.

The summary of attributes can provide a model for health-care leaders to apply lean in their organizations.

The purpose of this study is to identify and synthesise the best evidence on health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

A mixed-methods systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for mixed-methods systematic reviews using a convergent integrated approach. A systematic search was done in January 2023 in PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Medic and MedNar databases. The results were reported based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses. The data was analysed using thematic analysis.

Ten studies were included in the review (five qualitative and five quantitative). The thematic analysis identified seven analytical themes as follows: treating professionals as individuals with an empathetic and understanding approach; building a culture for open and safe communication; being there for professionals; giving all-encompassing support; showing the way as a leader and as a strong professional; building circumstances for efficient work and better well-being; and growing into a compassionate leader.

Compassionate leadership can possibly address human resource-related challenges, such as health-care professionals’ burnout, turnover and the lack of patient safety. It should be taken into consideration by health-care leaders, their education and health-care organisations when developing their effectiveness.

This review synthesised the knowledge of compassionate leadership in health care and its benefits by providing seven core elements of health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

Ambidexterity increases an organisation’s capability to successfully navigate dynamic and uncertain environments. While leaders are expected to model flexible learning and practices throughout the organisation, little is known about the leader characteristics and contextual factors that underpin ambidexterity. This study aims to explore whether paradoxical thinking, integrator behaviours and managerial role and level influence the likelihood of leaders exhibiting ambidexterity.

This study relied on a self-report questionnaire completed by 152 managers of a large, public health-care organisation in New Zealand. A k-means cluster analysis of the data was conducted to identify leader ambidexterity clusters, and the hypothesised effects were tested with multinomial logistic regressions.

Health-care managers favoured exploitation and moderate ambidexterity. Higher levels of integrator behaviours (i.e. reflective learning and context responsiveness) were found among leaders who showed high ambidexterity. Context responsiveness was the sole significant predictor distinguishing between high ambidexterity and other ambidexterity profiles. No statistically significant differences in ambidexterity cluster membership were found between clinical and non-clinical roles and across managerial levels.

While our study relied on a cross-sectional self-reported design, the findings underscore the importance of learning behaviours and context responsiveness to ambidexterity. This study discusses avenues for future research and leadership development towards improved organisational learning systems and practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to test the contribution of paradoxical thinking and integrator behaviours to health-care leader ambidexterity and to examine differences in ambidexterity profiles across managerial levels and roles. The factor analysis suggests that integrator behaviours represent two distinct constructs: reflective le`arning and context responsiveness.