Globally, the health sector faces significant demands for reform and improvement to meet the needs of the 21st Century. To achieve that goal, highly sophisticated and capable leaders are required across all dimensions of the health system. This book describes the key challenges that demand reform, why better leadership is the source code for better system performance, and the issues that stand in the way of getting that leadership. It includes substantive treatment of the modern democratic challenges that healthcare leaders face; and the essence of what it means to be a leader in today's world. The essence of leadership itself is described, and the case made for the need for people to use the workplace as the place to develop leadership rather than relying solely on formal programs. It will also outline a self-directed learning process that any individual leader-citizen, clinician, or senior executive-can use to develop their own leadership capability, and thus become more active as a leader of change. This book addresses the need for leaders to think on a system-wide scale. A second part of the book focuses primarily on the Canadian Health system and LEADS in a Caring Environment capabilities framework, and the link between LEADS and frameworks in Australia and the UK. LEADS was developed through a partnership between members of the Healthcare Leaders Association of British Columbia and the Canadian College of Health Leaders, the Canadian Health Leadership Network and Royal Roads University. Currently it is stewarded by a not-for-profit collaboration that has endorsed LEADS as an evidence-informed set of national expectations for Canadian health leaders. LEADS has been endorsed by many health organizations in almost all provinces in Canada as a foundation for their talent management programs in leadership (development and succession planning). The book will address the research foundations for the LEADS framework; how it was developed; the framework's contents; its congruence with other national frameworks, and how LEADS can be used as a model to envisage and plan change.

This edited volume, featuring five new chapters from invited authors, provides an updated and evidence-based explanation of leadership within a healthcare environment. The book discusses new insights garnered from recent research into the importance of leadership in health system redesign and highlights the practice of shared or distributed health care leadership. New chapters covering LEADS in a national, regional, Indigenous, health profession, and people-centred care context provide new insights into how LEADS is being put to work to transform health systems. The LEADS framework has been refreshed in relation to each of its different elements and tools, with an emphasis on providing real-life examples of how LEADS has been put to work. LEADS is also explained as a change leadership model and in relation to how it helps to level the playing field in terms of gender and diversity in health leadership. The book aims to inform the leadership needs of health reform and its emergent system wide challenges. The content is relevant to health care administrators and professionals working within the public service, academic institutions, and health care delivery organisations.