Leadership and decision making: a skill for all?

Abstract

Leadership: a process of social infl uence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task – Martin Chemers1 Make a decision. Make a DECISION. Make ANY decision. Make it NOW! – staff sergeant to offi cer cadet, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (2012). The above defi nition and quotation respectively provide your editor with food for thought concerning the concept of leadership, which is the special focus of this issue of Future Hospital Journal. On the one hand this appears to be a collaborative and persuasive skill exercised in measured and controlled circumstances; while on the other it involves taking immediate responsibility for executing a task with potentially profound consequences for all involved, and moreover doing so when tired, hungry and challenged by imperfect knowledge and understanding of the situation in which the leader fi nds themselves. Parallels between this military approach, in which the challenge of leading more experienced operatives through complex manoeuvres is imposed on the successful trainee immediately after qualifi cation, with that applied to pre-registration house offi cers in 1979 (the year of your editor’s graduation) seem superfi cially to be numerous, excepting the element of physical danger. Thus, a one-in-two rota leading to progressive exhaustion, insertion into the ‘frontline’ with minimal experience immediately post medical school, and the need to convey authority to nursing and allied health professionals with immensely more experience and ability than oneself when fearful of the consequences of ‘getting it wrong’ are strangely familiar concepts