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This paper aims to propose that healthcare is dominated by a managerialist ideology, powerfully shaped by business schools and embodied in the Masters in Business Administration. It suggests that there may be unconscious collusion between universities, healthcare employers and student leaders and managers.

Based on a review of relevant literature, the paper examines critiques of managerialism generally and explores the assumptions behind leadership development. It draws upon work which suggests that leading in healthcare organisations is fundamentally different and proposes that leadership development should be more practice-based.

The way forward for higher education institutions is to include work- or practice-based approaches alongside academic approaches.

The paper suggests that there is a challenge for higher education institutions to adopt and integrate practice-based development methods into their programme designs.

The paper provides a challenge to the future role of higher education institutions in developing leadership in healthcare.

This paper aims to make the case that there is a need to move beyond a focus on an approach to leadership development which is confined to health care only. It argues that, given the economic, financial, social and organisational context within which health and social care organisations in the UK operate, there is a need to develop leadership within health and social care systems, rather than within the existing “siloed” sectors.

The paper considers the context within which health and social care organisations in the UK operate; examines the nature of those organisations; makes the case for focusing on the health and social car system through systems leadership; and identifies the need for leadership, rather than leader development.

There is a danger of health and social care organisations “walking backwards into the future” with eyes fixed on the past. The future lies with treating health and social care as a system, rather than focusing on organisations. The current model is individual leader focused, but the emerging model is one of collective multi-agency teams.

The paper seeks to go beyond a health-care-only focus, by asserting that there is a need to regard health and social care as a single system, delivered by a multiplicity of different organisations. This has implications for the kind of leadership involved and for how this might be developed.

The understanding of “organisations” has changed fundamentally from seeing them as concrete entities to viewing them as communities of meaning. Mature adults in healthcare learn best when addressing pressing problems in company of their peers. Healthcare is unlike other sectors because of the emotional labour which is part of the experience of clinical staff. Absorptive capacity offers a conceptual model for viewing organisational learning and the encouragement of systemic eloquence can be enabled through a variety of approaches, provided they are designed and delivered as part of a well-thought-through approach to developing local absorptive capacity.

This is a viewpoint paper.

Healthcare differs from other sectors. Organisational learning can be enabled by a range of approaches, but these need to be sensitive to local circumstances.

The paper asserts that healthcare is unlike other sectors because of emotional labour on the part of clinical staff. It maintains that organisations are communities of meaning, rather than concrete entities. Systemic eloquence can be enhanced by the concept of absorptive capacity, applied in local contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the centrality of anxiety in health care, especially in the context of leading change. It identifies the importance of emotional labour for clinical professionals and the resultant development of defensive routines. The idea of containment is central to addressing anxiety.

The approach involves identification of anxiety as a key factor in leading change in health care, but one which is often ignored.

Anxiety is the elephant in the room vis-a-vis leading change in health care. To address the use of defensive routines, a range of activities can act as “containers” for anxiety and help with leading change.

To lead change in health care implies addressing the existence and importance of anxiety and the emotional labour which health-care professionals undertake.

The existence of anxiety and the profound impact it has on leading change in health care has typically been under-estimated or avoided. The paper aims to remedy this.

In action learning sets participants bring their personal energy and attitudes. These produce identifiable behaviour styles (not types of people). In the energy investment model four behaviour styles of set members are identified, showing participants’ typical feelings and reactions, the support needed and what helpful questions may be.

This paper aims to suggest that the language typically used about leadership in healthcare tells us something important about how we see it.

Three main metaphors currently adopted for healthcare leadership purposes are explored – military, sporting and finance.

The language used about leadership sustains the way the world is seen. A more life-affirming use of language is possible, which more accurately reflects what healthcare is about.

The paper builds on the work of Gareth Morgan in applying the use of metaphors to healthcare leadership.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/09552069810222810. When citing the article, please cite: John Edmonstone, (1998), “Ready for take-off: realising the potential of the education and training consortia”, Health Manpower Management, Vol. 24 Iss: 5, pp. 188 - 191.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The purpose of this paper is to review eight major evaluations of leadership and management development programmes in parts of the UK National Health Service and also to identify learning from these as a basis for an evaluation framework which focuses on impact within healthcare organisations.

Eight evaluations conducted over a 13‐year period are reviewed in terms of the staff groups covered, numbers involved, duration, programme elements, evaluation approach adopted and key learning points. General conclusions are derived from this review.

Although each evaluation relates to a unique context or setting, there are clear common messages running across all those studied which are of wider interest and concern.

The framework developed from the review may be useful to those commissioning, designing, delivering and evaluating leadership programmes.

The paper seeks to identify common learning across programmes involving some 1,653 people, ranging in duration from seven to 18 months and covering first‐line clinical management to executive director positions.

The paper aims to describe the emerging critique of leader development in health care and to describe an alternative approach.

The paper explores the growing critique of leader development, highlighting the concentration on the development of individual human capital. The creation of social capital through an emphasis on leadership development is explained. Design principles and potential obstacles are identified.

A rebalancing of the field from an over‐concentration on the development of individual leaders to an emphasis on context and relationships is necessary.

Although the basic building‐blocks of development will remain the same, there is a need to rebalance them towards leadership rather than leaders.

The paper brings together in one place various strands of concern over leader development in health care and makes a case for change.