Clinicians as leaders : How important are leadership competencies for leadership performance

Public health organisations of today are increasingly subject to the same market forces and competition as are private enterprises, and will inevitably have to go through the same transition towards a more professional leadership as they did a couple of decades ago. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the importance of the development of leadership competencies for leaders in professional bureaucracies, more specifically public health care organisations, and to find out if their members are prepared for the organisational change that is forcing its way to make these organisations more leadership efficient. An increasingly popular view is that there is a lot to be gained by encouraging leaders to either participate in a local leadership education program or to take a university course in leadership and administration. If clinician-leaders are to take an active part in forming their future, they will have to take leadership seriously and come to terms with the idea that leadership education is necessary in addition to academic merits.