Bangkok--21 Aug--Hay Group
A big shift has been observed in medical leadership roles, where there is a greater focus than ever before on medical leadership through formal, weighty leadership roles. This has raised challenges for individuals and organisations in enabling medical leaders to take on these new roles in the short term. It has also prompted the need for new thinking about how the system ensures it grows the medical leaders needed for the future. This moves beyond the issue of how to develop individuals, to far broader questions of how to define and operate medical leadership roles.
To explore these issues in more detail, Hay Group’s conducted a survey, with medical and non-medical leaders. We asked respondents about their plans to remain in leadership roles and how confident they are that they have successors in place for medical leadership roles. The results highlight a significant challenge. 45 per cent of medical leaders are uncertain about remaining in their leadership role for more than five years. Moreover, 58 per cent of respondents have little or no confidence that they have successors in place for medical leadership roles.
“The culture and the highly specialized nature of the medical industry leads to a limited pool of leadership and potential successors. There are challenges in bringing non-medical personnel to take on leadership positions, in addition clinical work is still the main source of income which leads to limited time spent on medical leadership roles, presenting barriers to medical succession planning. We can see from the study that the majority or 82 per cent of medical leadership found the leadership role unattractive to talent potential successors.” Panuwat Kanchanosot, Senior Consultant at Hay Group reveals.
We also found that the issues which leads to a poor perception of leadership roles can be more broadly summarised in five categories:
1. Managing clinical work and leadership roles
Lack of time to perform the role; flexibility to manage their clinical commitments; and opportunity to continue with clinical work are key detractors from taking on medical leadership roles. The impact on their time is seen as the biggest disincentive with 90 per cent highlighting this. This reflects the theme that most medical leaders want to continue with some clinical work.
2. Poor relationships
All respondents highlight managerial support as critical in terms of having good managerial support, good working relationships and the trust of the senior team.
3. Support from colleagues
Whilst non-medical leaders identify managing challenging colleagues as a reason for why they are put off from such roles, medical leaders express this differently. For them, this is a detractor, but not top of their list. The support of medical colleagues is more important. Comments also highlight the difficulty in holding colleagues (both medical and non-medical) to account and being enabled to have the impact they want.
4. Lack of resources
The lack of broader resources to get the job done is highlighted as an important detractor, in particular a lack of administrative and financial support.
5. Unequal status
Non-medical leaders identify pay as an issue much more strongly than medical leaders do. For medical leaders, the key issue appears to be centred around equality and the value placed on the role, both perceived and as articulated through pay and career paths.
With a range of factors deterring medics from leadership roles, what is most critical to make these roles more attractive? Three key themes emerge:
1. Look beyond development
Non-medical respondents focus strongly on training and development for medical leaders as a solution. This is still important for medical respondents, but their focus is broader, highlighting the importance of:
- clarity of what the role entails
- support to understand and develop towards leadership roles early in careers
- ongoing appraisal and on-the-job experience and career planning
- flexibility in career paths that helps individuals balance time between clinical and managerial work
- support in moving in and out of leadership/ medical roles.
2. Status and positioning
The status of leadership roles is important and links clearly to the need for ‘colleague support’ when taking on roles. Positioning roles as being of equal value and status is crucial. This includes:
- developing and publicising role models
- publicly demonstrating impact
- medical leaders themselves promoting the value of leadership roles.
Pay and reward is mentioned by clinicians, despite not being the most critical detractor. However the key here is ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’ with clinical work.
3. Support
A relationship with operational managers and support from managers is highlighted as important. Medical leadership may have been pushed to the fore by recent reforms, but our findings suggest that this needs to be as part of a team, not in isolation. Key support needed includes:
- being given the resources to do the job
- appropriate training and development to take on the role
- supportive and trusting relationships with managerial colleagues at senior and peer level.
Panuwat adds that only focusing on leadership development is not enough to tackle the challenge of talent management and succession planning in medical industry. Placing value on the role and supporting the flexibility between clinical and leadership work are the key issues for attracting and developing medical leadership, this will be critical in supporting sustainable healthcare development in the future.