Identify the challenges of leadership in hospitals

By accepting the responsibility of management and leadership, doctors are not completely separated from their medical duties. Usually, doctors have to follow their therapeutic duties while playing the role of leadership. Playing the role of leadership and performing clinical tasks at the same time presents various challenges to doctors. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine and identify the challenges of playing the role of leadership and conflicting roles of doctors in hospitals.

The present descriptive-qualitative study was conducted in 2021 on a number of managers and senior experts of hospitals. In order to provide operational solutions, the existing literature was first reviewed. Then, a study sample was selected from the target population in a targeted way. In order to obtain the desired information, interviews and focus groups were used. NVIVO 10 software was used to code and store all interview documents.

Leader physicians face challenges in performing their leadership role and performing their clinical duties. In this research, five major challenges related to this category were identified, these challenges include: the challenge of ambiguity in the identity of being a doctor or having the identity of a leader, the challenge of creating a balance between the expected obligations in relation to patients and the obligations Related to the role of leadership, the challenge of compensating for the lack of leadership skills through the promotion of clinical skills, the challenge of looking down on the role of leadership in comparison to the provision of medical services, and the challenge of ethical obligations in dealing with the work of patients even when the task of leadership is a full-time job is a physician.

In addition to professional and specialized medical knowledge, leading physicians correspondingly need leadership skills in order to express their identity as a leader. Moreover, they should create a balance between their two identities, for this purpose, they need to be continuously trained in relation to management and leadership skills. As a result, healthcare organizations should strengthen their management and leadership skills by providing practical training.