38 PEJ MaY•June/2010
By Robert A. Cherry MD, MS, CPE, FACS, Deborah C. Davis, DSW, and Luanne Thorndyke MD, FACP
Transforming Culture Through
Physician Leadership Development
Leadership Development
In this article…
Discover strategies that health care organizations
can use to develop physician leaders who can help
transform organizational culture and create more
effective, highly functioning organizations.
Teamwork and leadership are essential to achieve the
goals outlined in any strategic plan. Physicians are critical
stakeholders who must be invested in realizing organizational
and departmental goals.
Health care organizations must recognize “the need
to develop [physician] leaders who possess the knowledge,
skills, behaviors, and attitudes to educate physicians to work
collaboratively across professional boundaries.”1
Physician leadership development programs should
target those skills that are lacking within an organization
and are necessary to the overall success of the organization.
According to Karen Kowalski, “[professional] development
begins with identifying a pool of potential leaders, people
who have some abilities and a desire for leadership.”2 Internal
leadership development should therefore be ref lective,
planned, and “hard-wired” into the organization at multiple
levels.
Leadership is the most important competency for ensur-
ing success and long-term sustainability during organization-
al transformation. The amount of change and unpredictability
start to increase within organizations during the transition
between the old way of doing things and the emergence of a
new way, according to Wiley Souba, MD. 3
The demand for more effective leadership is even more
critical during this transitional time period. Garvin and
Roberto4 identified four phases of the “persuasion campaign”
that must be navigated to achieve successful, sustained
change within an organization:
1. Convince staff that change is necessary and why a new
strategic direction is the correct course of action.
2. Communicate and frame a preliminary plan for action
and gather feedback before finalizing.
3. Manage the mood of the staff through ongoing
communication.
4. Reinforce desired behaviors to ensure sustainability.
Organizational leadership may lack a clear sense of
how to make successful, sustained change happen, however.
Targeting physicians for leadership development can be part
of an organization’s strategy to navigate through a challeng-
ing and dynamic environment.
As an example, Emory University’s Woodruff Health
Sciences Center recently developed a strategic plan called
Vision 2012.5 Five strategic foci were identified:
1. Financial strength
2. Innovation
3. People and the workplace
4. Knowledge management
5. Leadership
After reviewing the key elements of the strategic plan,
senior administrators determined that leadership excellence
was essential to achieve success in all of the other strategic
foci. Perhaps this argument could be made for the strategic
plan developed in your organization as well.
To facilitate development of physician leaders, it is nec-
essary to “set the direction from the top and engage people
from below.”6 Senior leadership must be actively engaged and
persuaded that leadership development is essential for the
overall success of the organization, and worthy of investment
and effort.

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Health care executives need to
engage in a direct, hands-on process
to identify leadership capabilities
needed by the organization, and to
identify and develop physician leaders
who exemplify these capabilities.