Leadership in health care and the leadership literature

Crossing the Quality Chasm, the Institute of Medicine's recently issued report on the quality of health care in America, is a call to arms for the urgent redesign of the U.S. health care system. The big question confronting health care organizations is how to mount new strategies that will enhance organizational effectiveness and reduce system failures as well as individual errors. Redesign implies organizational restructuring and engineering as well as serious steps in organizational development, with the emphasis on leadership enhancement strategies focused on performance excellence. This article addresses the state of the leadership literature and concludes that massive new investments will have to be made to tackle the issues of leadership training and accountability.