Visionary Leadership Strategies for Quality of Health Higher Education

The quantitative and qualitative improvement of medical education requires managers aware of and qualified with the necessary skill and knowledge to lead a large number of faculty members, students, managers and staff at medical universities. Undoubtedly, university leaders have a high priority to improve the quality of education. The aim of the present study is to determine the role of visionary leadership as an effective strategy for improving the quality of the Iranian higher health education system. Therefore, developing leadership training programs and focusing on the development of visionary leadership skills in medical education and health systems are necessary. Data collection was done using articles published in the Google Scholar, Scopus, Sciences Direct, Magiran, SID databases. In this overview, the most important effective factors and the components of visionary leadership and the quality of health higher education in the books and related articles between 2000 and 2019 were applied using the key word in the title of visionary leadership, Educational Quality, University of Medical Sciences, and Higher Education. 55 out of 345 searched papers that had credible and reliable information were reviewed. The findings have shown that the increase of complexity in health service systems highly requires effective medical leaders to make decisions in the organization, but few doctors have been trained to work as effective leaders. Considering the emphasis of the faculty members and students on the effectiveness of a medical leader, as well as the need for faculty members and medical students to be familiar with the concepts of leadership and training them as effective leaders, it seems the effective presentation of leadership and management courses for the purpose of improving the educational quality during a medical education course or continuous educational courses is indispensable and leads to empowerment.