Transformational Executive Health-Care Leadership: What Makes a Good and Great Health-Care Leader?

Abstract

Health-care leaders work at the highest levels of organizations and face unique challenges in today's health-care systems. This article reports the lived experiences of an executive nurse to better understand their leadership journey and leadership shadow, exploring their professional development of health-care leadership while navigating change and conflict by interpreting critical turning points in their career and triangulating data to identify and analyze central themes. Offering a real-world perspective, the article uses personal reflection aligned to professional inquiry, workplace observations, document reviews, and personal accounts to focus on executive nursing and the construction of a social movement from within a large managed care organization. The purpose of this evaluation is to create deeper understandings of ways in which to improve patient and provider experiences, reduce system waste, and improve population health. The theme of transformational leadership emerged, and new insights were created to inform future thinking.