What is System Complexity

As healthcare systems evolve and physicians face more administrative and regulatory burdens, it is imperative for them to build leadership competencies. In fact, there is a need for a pipeline to be created of emerging clinical leaders who have already mastered competencies and skills required of successful leaders. The heroic style of paternalistic leadership is less successful in an era of system complexity, quality control, and personnel diversity. A more preferable leadership style is that of shared leadership where a vision is created towards which team members are intrinsically driven to achieve. These factors have cumulatively contributed to the increasing cognizance that more training programs are needed to make comprehensive leadership development widely accessible to a greater number of potential clinical leaders. This chapter explores physicians and agents of change.