Conclusion
Health service delivery in Canada is under significant pressure to change. Budget cuts, escalating costs resulting from demographic shifts, and dramatic technological advances are all driving health toward a major transformation. This circumstance has created a demand for more and higher quality leadership. From a “health services systems” perspective, change is facilitated and change fatigue minimized when leaders in the health system conceptualize and operate from a common understanding of what effective leadership is. The creation of this common understanding is facilitated by opportunities for dialogue and discussion amongst senior leaders in which leadership is examined in the context of the desired changes in health services delivery. This paper examines three recent opportunities for dialogue in which senior leaders in Canada have collectively generated shared meanings for health services leadership. A typology of those shared meanings for effective leadership in which key elements are identified and examined, and expressed as transforming from old expressions to new is outlined. This phenomenon has implications for a leader’s expectations of, and ability to practice leadership; and for developmental approaches to growing leadership. One key implication is that more research should be done into how to develop leadership that is constantly evolving into new forms and the health system itself evolves. It also
suggests that coalitions dedicated to leadership development such as CHLNet, Leaders for Life; and professional organizations such as CCHSE have a vital role to play in stimulating, and developing the leadership needed to steward successful health transformation in the Canadian health system.