Main Body
Leading from the Top – Chief Medical Officers and Their Leadership Styles
Lena Schreiber
Introduction
Chief Medical Officers are important players within the healthcare industry. They are physician leaders who play a big role in providing high-quality patient care for patients, and they can have a great impact on the overall performance of their hospitals (Angood & Birk, 2014). Because of their importance, this chapter examines Chief Medical Officer leadership characteristics through the lens of three different leadership approaches: the trait approach, the skills approach, and the behavioral approach. The main finding of the analysis of Chief Medical Officer leadership characteristics discussed in this chapter is that there is good consistency between leadership theory and practice exhibited by CMOs.
This chapter first highlights the importance of physician leaders in general and then describes common characteristics of the Chief Medical Officer. I provide an overview of traits, skills, and behavioral approaches to leadership, and then compare each of these displayed by CMOs.
The Role of Physician Leaders
In their paper, The Value of Physician Leadership, Angood & Birk (2014) make several statements that point to the importance of physician leaders. They point out that “[t]oday, approximately 5 percent of hospital leaders are physicians, and that number is expected to increase rapidly …” They also state that “[t]he American College of Physician Executives (ACPE), the nation’s oldest and largest leadership education and career support organization for all types of physicians, champion the view that physicians are best suited to lead clinical efforts to achieve true patient-centered care.” Moreover, “ACPE includes physician leadership as one of its nine essential elements required to provide optimal patient-centered care.” The 2013 U.S. News and World Report rankings show that 10 of the 18 hospitals listed on the “Honor Roll” are physician led, with the top five all having physician leaders. (Angood & Birk, 2014). Goodall’s Physician leaders and hospital performance: Is there an association? study, indicated that “The best-performing hospitals are led disproportionately by physicians” (Goodall, 2011). Overall, evidence suggests that physician leaders play a big role in providing high-quality patient care, and they have a great impact on the performance of their hospitals (Angood & Birk, 2014). Physician leaders can have different titles, like chief medical officer, vice president for medical affairs, or vice dean for clinical affairs, among others (Longnecker et al., 2007). The following sections will mainly focus on the Chief Medical Officer.
Background Information on the Role of the Chief Medical Officer
The role of the Chief Medical Officer was initially created around 1980 with the intent of having a physician on the senior management team who understood both, the medical and administrative sides and could function as a “liaison” bet