Modern physicians have much more responsibilities than health purposes. Because of the emergence of new technologies, new types of patient needs, and strict regulations, physicians have to develop their strategic management skills to lead healthcare organizations to a new level of complexity.
As such, the ability of physicians to successfully manage healthcare organizations is a crucial prerequisite for navigating the intricacies of management. This article aims to analyze physician leadership skills that contribute to effective healthcare management and to discuss how physicians can further develop them.
The healthcare field is facing truly unparalleled challenges. Whether for a successful adaptation to the newly developed and emerging healthcare technologies or for addressing the increasing patient demand that physicians have to cope with, the role of physician leaders in today’s healthcare environment could not be overstressed.
Healthcare is a very multidimensional sphere with a complex structure, and comprehensive approaches to physicians’ roles are required. Studies have investigated the effects of leadership roles performed by physicians on overall operational success. They revealed that healthcare institutions with physician leaders have better patient outcomes and functional teamwork.
Physicians perform on the clinical side of operations, and their leadership contributes to the link between all patients’ care systems and all executive operation systems. Besides clinical-based knowledge, modern physician leadership needs theoretical knowledge related to main leadership concepts and emotional intelligence that would serve as a tool for constant decision-making. Finally, leadership skills are essential in healthcare management to perform various tasks designed to enhance patients’ care, such as conflict resolution and leading new programs.
Emotional Intelligence, or the ability to identify and manage one’s emotions and those of other people, is one of the most vital characteristics of a physician leader. In the high-stress, high-stakes environment of healthcare, where dealings with both staff and patients occur frequently, the ability to manage one’s emotions is crucial.
Physician leaders with high emotional intelligence can build trust, foster collaboration, and manage conflicts. A significant part of a manager’s job is managing relationships, and this aspect is especially crucial when emotions run high in case of a complaint from a patient or a conflict between staff members. Effective physician leaders can control both their emotions and the emotions of the people around them, helping them maintain a positive culture of work and motivating the team to perform better.
Decision-making is another essential characteristic of a leader. Considering the high stakes of the medical field, the ability to make timely and balanced decisions is particularly important for physician leaders.
It is comparable in terms of importance to emotional intelligence, as the impact of bad decisions on team morale and organizational structures is long-lasting. There is a wide variety of situations where the stakes are high, and a fast judgment is required.
Additionally, the ability to think of and replace primary plans with something more daring is also crucial. A part of a leader’s responsibility is critical thinking, and while it is essential for implementing changes, it is also important to think of a multitude of ways to solve a problem that would be beneficial to the organization and fall in line with the best clinical practice.
The ability to manage conflicts is another crucial feature of a physician’s leader. The range of disputes is wide, and potential people involved are numerous: inside departments, among team members and between them, and even with patients and their relatives.
The ability to use active listening, emphatic understanding, and resolve conflicts constructively is vital to the leader. They do not manage in terms of dominating, solving the problem, or dividing both sides into “our” people and “their” opponents. Instead, effective conflict management is achieved by employing various techniques to persuade both sides of the conflict to cooperate and search for a compromise.
Physicians are greatly trained in clinical practice. However, many physicians lack the financial and operational management skills needed to run a healthcare organization effectively. As a result, these skills are essential for physician leaders when they make decisions related to budget, resources, and operations.
Knowledge of healthcare economics and understanding the operations side of the management would help the leaders to achieve optimal decisions of performance and resource balance. Operational management provides leaders with knowledge to make processes more effective by cutting out inappropriate activities and, as a result, reducing the waste of time and resources.
The healthcare system and its requirements are constantly changing. Technologies and various other systems are changing, so physicians have to be adaptable and flexible to keep up with these changes.
An adaptive leader is one who can see and catch the opportunities produced by rapid change and incorporate them into management and staff planning. In this way, leaders can find ways to incorporate innovations into the existing working process.
Quick changes in the working environment also require specific skills. Adaptability and flexibility are also important in the leadership style. During a medical crisis or other similar situations, the situation-related leadership style will be needed, whereas, in everyday management, one can use more democratic leadership.
Leadership requires excellent communication skills. This is important for a wide array of professionals, particularly physician leaders, who should be able to communicate not only with their staff but also with the patients, hospital or health facility administrators, and other key stakeholders.
Nevertheless, communication is not enough, and there is another intrinsic trait: the ability to influence people. Influence should be based on more than position; it should be constructed on solid relationships and trust.
While developing physician leadership skills is crucial, many physicians face a variety of challenges in this regard. One of the prominent ones is the lack of formal training in this field. Because medical education focuses mainly on providing clinical skills and experience, physicians may not be prepared to lead and manage a healthcare organization.
Nevertheless, there are several approaches to developing these critical abilities. For example, some professional development programs offer leadership courses for physicians, allowing them to understand more about management and its principles while also studying topics like organizational behavior.
A mentor or a role model can be another powerful asset for development. Such an experienced leader would provide advice and share experience, offering valuable lessons learned during their leadership practice.
Using a role model in the leadership development process is a critical approach that can help identify and reproduce many of the successful leader’s valuable qualities and attitudes. Additionally, both this and the information from the course can help one learn from someone else’s mistakes and prevent repeating them.
However, one should remember that leadership is a transferable power that should not be directly copied; it is rather a tool for influencing people and making an impact. So, people may choose to develop their own leadership styles based on the advice they have received from a mentor or throughout any course.
The importance of physician leadership in the continuing success of healthcare organizations cannot be overstated in an ever-growing, complex industry. Enabling an executive to live up to the potential of being a great leader requires a shift from relying purely on clinical expertise to the development of other vital abilities. In particular, qualities such as emotional intelligence, decision-making, conflict resolution, and operational management have a special role.
By developing these and other physician leadership skills, practitioners might be able not only to help their organizations survive in the current difficult historical environment but also help them improve and thrive. While these vital qualities will require time to master, physicians will be equipped with a sufficient set of abilities to start their journey and bring about the lasting positive change needed in modern healthcare.
