Phyllis L MacIntyre and Philippe A Souvestre
Health Care professionals are effective problem-solvers in a specific area of technology; leadership calls for a very different way of thinking and learning. Leadership development is a combination of experiential learning and programmed learning, including the conceptual frameworks of leadership, practice to integrate and apply the metacognitive skills of leadership, such as self-discovery of leadership identity and a movement towards mindfulness. Integral to this learning is the support of other leaders who provide a mixture of coaching and mentoring to sustain the new leader’s growth. Leadership education takes place beyond university in a context that broadens the career opportunities for health care professionals. In the USA leadership development education has a business focus, while in Canada it values sustainability and a holistic thinking, particularly in medical and applied sciences. Often professionals regard leadership training as a soft skill with less value in their technical field of practice and this presents a challenge for leaders in organizations or professional associations, who need to identify the preferred educational strategies to develop leadership or to risk using leaders without the essential technical expertise for strategic planning and decisionmaking. Employer surveys show an expectation that health care graduates have equivalent skills in technical expertise, business knowledge, and leadership. Learning leadership includes leadership practices to describe and quantify the leadership of individuals and to characterize the leadership of the specific group; secondly, a workshop on leadership education based on transformational learning and thirdly, formation of a community of leaders who advocate and further leadership development.
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