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Leadership

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Leading in the NHS
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Abstract

In difficult times, people need leadership as well as management. This is true in the NHS today, and in the foreseeable future. It is true, too, in many other organisations in Britain and elsewhere. Yet ‘leadership’ is a word that many in the NHS are chary of using,1 even ‘management’ is often viewed with scepticism and the traditional term, ‘administration’ preferred. Each word has a different, though often ambiguous, meaning and each is necessary in the NHS today. Before we can focus on leadership, we must first understand how these terms differ.

‘A few years ago I could not have used the word “leadership” without wincing and blushing, now I do use it.’ (RGM)

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Notes and References

  1. Rosemary Stewart, The Reality of Management, 2nd edn (London: Heinemann and Pan, 1985) and The Reality of Organizations, revised edn (Macmillan and Pan, 1985).

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  2. Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders: Five Strategies for Taking Charge (New York: Harper & Row, 1985) pp. 89–90.

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  3. Gareth Morgan, Riding the Waves of Change: Developing Managerial Competencies for a Turbulent World (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988).

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  4. Warren Bennis, The Unconscious Conspiracy: Why Leaders Can’t Lead (New York: AMACON, 1976) p. 15.

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  5. Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960) p. 48. McGregor distinguished between Theory X, which he called the traditional view of motivation that people disliked work and therefore had to be coerced and controlled and Theory Y, which was that people will work willingly, in the right conditions.

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  6. J. de Kervasdoué, J. R. Kimberley and V. G. Rodwin, The End of an Illusion: The Future of Health Policy in Western Industrialized Nations (Berkeley: University of California, 1984).

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  7. Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, (London: Macmillan, 1987) p. 416.

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  8. John Harvey-Jones, Making it Happen: Reflections on Leadership (London: Collins, 1988) pp. 112–13.

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  9. Tom Peters and Nancy Austin, A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference (London: Collins, 1985).

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© 1989 Rosemary Stewart

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Stewart, R. (1989). Leadership. In: Leading in the NHS. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19934-1_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19934-1_1

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-48085-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-19934-1

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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