Navy medicine: a health care leadership blueprint for the future

Health care organizations face unprecedented fiscal, regulatory, and social challenges. Future executive leadership of health care organizations must be extremely effective for an organization to remain vital. To identify the characteristics that successful leaders of the future will require, 11 senior health care executives in the U.S. Navy Medical Department were invited to describe (1) desirable characteristics of future health care leaders, (2) how to identify individuals with executive potential, and (3) how to prepare individuals to become successful health care executives. The findings provide a blueprint for leadership development for leaders in health care organizations.