Physician leaders are positioned to shape the Future of Health
By Jay Bhatt, D.O., MPH, MPA, managing director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, Deloitte Services LP, and Felix Matthews, MD, MBA, managing director, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Health care is a team sport, and physician leaders are uniquely positioned to inspire their teams and drive change inside and outside of their organizations. Along with their medical duties, physician leaders are often expected to oversee enterprise-wide transformation, process improvements, and the integration of emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence). They might also be at the forefront of the Future of HealthTM where the focus is moving from reactive treatments to prevention-oriented care. Ongoing changes in the health care sector, workforce pressures, and new medical innovations means the scope of change for physician leaders has never been broader or more consequential.
Many of the best performing health systems—both in the US and around the world—are led by physicians.i But physician leaders aren’t confined to hospitals. Some are heading biopharmaceutical and medical technology companies, health plans, and consumer organizations. It is this convergence of industries that is helping to shape the Future of Health. The most effective physician leaders combine the core traits of strong leadership (e.g., integrity, self-awareness, empathy, adaptability, and strong communication skills) with clinical credibility and the respect of their peers. They also tend to be adept at coalition-building and able to influence stakeholders to work collectively toward a common goal.
Historically, physicians have acquired leadership skills through experience—learning by doing, often in the absence of structured development.ii They were often promoted based on their clinical excellence and years of service. While that path can yield valuable instincts, it can also leave critical gaps. In an era defined by rapid technological change, shifting policy landscapes, and growing organizational complexity, physician leaders now tend to benefit most when their skills are intentionally developed.
We recently spoke with several physicians who have gone through leadership training and are pursuing leadership positions in health care and life sciences organizations. Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jay: Why are you pursuing a leadership role?
Ezz-Eldin (Dean) Maoukamal, M.D., chief quality officer at Allegheny Health Network: Leadership is something I've been pursuing since I started my residency. I’ve always been interested in finding a larger way to influence safety, quality systems, and outcomes for patients. I’d also like to do more to advocate for physicians. Physician voices are important in our health care systems.
Jessica Most, M.D., medical director, AstraZeneca: My company identified me as somebody who had leadership potential. I'm fairly early in my pharma career, so I jumped at the opportunity. When I started my career here, I was focused on just learning the ropes. Now I’d like to take charge of some of the projects I’m involved in and hone my leadership skills.
Jed Wolpaw, M.D., vice chair for education, residency program director, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: I enjoy clinical medicine, and I enjoy teaching and training the next generation of physicians. I find that every step up in leadership is an opportunity to affect more people, whether that's more trainees, more clinicians, more patients, or all of the above. I have found that the best leaders have an enormous impact on the people they lead.
Jennifer Keehbauch M.D., chief medical education officer and designated institutional officer, AdventHealth: I've been a leader and am self-aware of my opportunities to grow. After nine years, I transitioned from chief medical officer to chief medical education officer. That was a big change for me. I wanted ideas to move our graduate medical education forward.
Felix: Why do you think it is valuable to collaborate with physicians from other disciplines:
Dean: As leaders, we all have blind spots. Some challenges can feel insurmountable, but you learn that there are always strategies to address them. Knowing that other physician leaders have been through similar challenges—and have had positive outcomes—is encouraging.
Jessica: Peer groups tend to be better when there is a range of backgrounds and different perspectives. That can help foster new thinking and establish good connections. Whether someone is early in their career or has been leading a large organization for a long time. I think everybody can take something away from it.
Jed: It is helpful to talk with physician leaders from a range of specialties as well as physician leaders from health plans and biopharmaceutical companies. We all face similar challenges, and leaders should understand how we all interface.
Jennifer: Most of the leadership courses I have attended in the past have been within my own organization. Being able to meet other leaders from outside of my organization, and seeing that we all face similar problems, is valuable.
Shilpen Patel, M.D., FACRO, FASTRO, global development leader, executive medical director, AbbVie: It’s easy to feel like no one is facing the same challenges I’m facing. And that can be frustrating. But when you talk with other leaders, you find out that’s not the case at all. You can see things that might have been in your blind spot and learn how others handled a similar situation. The commonality is that we are all trying to move medicine forward. We're all trying to do what's best for patients.
Jay: How do you think physician leadership goes beyond caring for patients?
Shilpen: Physician leaders need to have a clinical perspective, but they also need to have a business perspective, and they need to understand change management. I transitioned from academic medicine to a combined clinical leadership and industry role. I realized that I'm impacting thousands of patients. But I need more enterprise leadership skills to make me more effective as a leader.
Jennifer: An effective leadership program can teach you how to influence the teams that you work with, not just the team that reports to you, but your peers. It should also teach you how to manage up.
Jay: How can leadership skills help physicians overcome complex challenges?
Jed: In clinical medicine, you might ask someone how to put in a central line. A physician might be able to explain all of the steps in great detail while calmly sipping their coffee. But in the heat of the moment, when a patient could die in the next three seconds, it's stressful. If they don't have a checklist that they can use, they could miss a step. That is similar in leadership challenges. Tools and checklists can help physicians become better leaders.
Shilpen: There's no single tool that works for every situation, but the Fishbone technique is often useful. It’s a process of breaking down a challenge, simplifying it, and making practical decisions to move forward. [Note: A Fishbone Diagram is a structured, visual brainstorming tool used to identify the root causes of a complex problem. This can help teams move beyond mere symptoms to understand the true origin of an issue. The diagram is shaped like a fish skeleton, with the problem/effect at the "head" and potential causes branching out from the spine.]iii
Felix: What do you see as the key attributes of a successful leader?
Shilpen: Successful physician leaders don’t focus solely on their personal interests or career. They genuinely want to make a difference in medicine. When you throw a pebble into a pond, there's a little bit of a ripple, and those ripples go out multiple directions.
Jessica: Strong leaders learn from each other and are able to build off of each other's strengths and weaknesses. While I feel I have a lot of intrinsic leadership qualities, leadership training helped me develop a structure and language around leadership helped me be more intentional.
Conclusion
What separates the most effective physician leaders isn't tenure or clinical pedigree. It's the deliberate combination of clinical credibility with foundational leadership capabilities: integrity, self-awareness, empathy, adaptability, and the ability to communicate with clarity across audiences. Add to that a facility for coalition-building—the capacity to align diverse stakeholders around a shared vision—and you have a leader built for the complexity of today's health care environment.
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Endnotes
iDo health-care institutions perform better under leaders with medical or non-medical backgrounds? A scoping review - PMC
iiPhysicians’ Perceptions and Experiences Regarding Leadership: A Link Between Beliefs and Identity Formation - PMC
iiiHow to Use the Fishbone Tool for Root Cause Analysis
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