While I still remember when I first began to recognize my internal interest, aptitudes, and drive toward leadership, I also clearly remember not knowing where to go for advice or to obtain added knowledge and experience.
Like many of you, I became an “accidental leader” as I began to accrue gradually increasing levels of administrative responsibilities and leadership roles. And while doing so, I undoubtedly created certain levels of success, but I also made some serious errors in judgment or decision-making. Likely, many of you are now also reflecting on your own trajectories of “accidental leadership” and the positive or negative lessons you learned along the way.
I invite you to sit with that for a moment.
Why?
Healthcare is an incredibly complex and expensive industry with an increasing encroachment on its evolution by non-clinical influences, governmental incumbrances, and numerous tangential companies in related healthcare industry sectors. However, if we believe that healthcare performs better with physician leadership and that the patient-physician relationship will remain the dominant driving force for the foreseeable future, then physicians of all types and at all levels deserve more than routine or generic leadership development approaches. The eventual consequences on population health and patient care outcomes depend on needing more and better.
“Leadership” recently became an industrial and educational buzzword so diluted that its meaning no longer accurately reflects the depth of responsibility and potential for transformation it actually requires — especially in healthcare.
There needs to be an acknowledgment of how everyone seemingly is now selling or promoting leadership — from influencers to consultants — but that relatively few understand what it truly takes to lead and guide systems as complex and sacred as those in healthcare. With the leadership market now saturated and diluted, physicians who are used to exceptionally high standards of rigor in their professional development are unsure about which offerings are legitimate, relevant, or respectable.
Many leadership frameworks come from corporate or military environments that don’t necessarily translate well into healthcare. These models often infer hierarchy models and don’t adequately capture the humility and humanity so desperately needed in today’s healthcare environment. Even for those choosing to pursue predominantly clinical practice environments, there are still moments when all physicians wind up uniquely straddling both the clinical and administrative worlds (think coding, billing, scheduling, etc.). Many feel an inherent tension as they were trained to treat individuals as best as possible but then were pulled into systems that are broken or too bureaucratic.
These days, physicians need and look for leadership development grounded in healing, systems thinking, and human dignity — not just efficiency or quality metrics. AAPL trains all physicians to lead from within — rooted in caring for others, not just for simple career ambition or organizational process change.
So perhaps a new or different language is needed when considering physician leadership?
We must all emphasize more strongly that leadership for physicians isn’t just about control; it’s about purpose, culture-shaping, and ethical stewardship. AAPL is not just a training ground for “leaders,” because it is more than that; it is a developmental crucible for influence, integrity, and lasting impact in healthcare internationally. It’s truly about patient-centered care and what’s best for the health of our populations across all societies.
Since its founding in 1975, AAPL has helped physicians reimagine their roles — from clinical expert to cultural architect, from problem-solver to system-shaper. Beyond more than a quarter million physicians and other clinicians already influenced, thousands continue to participate with AAPL leadership development initiatives annually. At the same time, the association enjoys an actively growing membership of nearly 10,000 located in upwards of 40 countries (including numerous chief executive officers and chief medical officers). The industry-standard credential, Certified Physician Executive (CPE), originated with AAPL in 1997, and its alumni community continues to expand.
Remember, leading and helping to create significant positive change is our overall intent as physician leaders. AAPL successfully awakens the visionary stewards of medicine across all disciplines and backgrounds. AAPL is the place where physicians can reclaim their deeper calling and gain the tools to lead from integrity, not ego.
The industry is at a stage where we can’t afford physicians who only practice medicine or who take generic leadership programs — we need all physicians to become leaders at deeper levels who can help shape the future of medicine.
Society today doesn’t just need doctors who treat patients — it needs doctors who transform care.
Therefore, as physician leaders, we must embrace the complexities of our industry. We can choose to embrace the opportunities where our individual and collective energies can help create the beneficial changes that are so desperately needed. We must continue to be innovative and adaptive in our efforts.
Let us keep maximizing the opportunities placed continually in front of our profession. Imagine a world where every hospital, clinic, and health system is shaped by people who understand healing from the inside out. That’s not just leadership. That’s transformation.
So ask yourself now, not how can I grow with leadership, but how can I better serve myself and others differently in ways to improve the healthcare industry within my level of influence?
Through this international AAPL community, we all can continue seeking deeper levels of professional and personal development and recognize ways we can each generate constructive influence at all levels. As physician leaders, let us become more engaged, stay engaged, and help others to become engaged. Exploring and creating opportunities for broader levels of positive transformation in healthcare across the globe is within our reach, individually and collectively.
Leadership by the Numbers
The healthcare industry has more than of 75 clinical job types. The medical profession continues to have the longest training periods, coupled with the most extensive certification and rigorous licensure standards. As a result, the patient–physician relationship remains the dominant driving force in healthcare. The importance of physicians as leaders is multifactorial:
Better insight, unique perspectives, and expertise.
Stronger collaboration and teamwork among healthcare professionals.
Better handling of complex healthcare challenges.
Enhanced decision-making skills compared with other clinical job types.
Increased quality, safety, and efficiency in healthcare organizations.
Improved patient outcomes through better leadership and communication.
Greater success in achieving organizational goals.
Leadership development during medical school, residency, and early career stages has long been inadequate. The consequences are now being felt more acutely in a variety of ways, such as trends toward fixed-salary employment, consideration of pursuing non-clinical opportunities, early retirement by some, generalized uncertainty or disengagement by others, an erosion of public trust, and persistent levels of burnout for many. Many physicians are now expressing increased interest in leadership and leadership roles to offset these influences and consequences. A recent survey from Jackson Physician Search and MGMA(1) shows:
Evidence is gradually emerging that when physicians are in organizational leadership roles (including the CEO role), those organizations perform better when compared to peer-level competitors. For example, Newsweek magazine reports annually on the “Best Hospitals” internationally (>30 countries and 2,400 hospitals) and finds overwhelmingly that the number of top-ranked hospitals are run by physician CEOs (67 of the top 100 and 38 of the top 50).(2) Of note, AAPL has research initiatives underway to further substantiate the benefits and impacts related to physician leadership.
Leadership development is a $77.9 billion industry,(3) offering more options for training than ever before, and is currently on a 10% annual growth rate. However, only 23% of leaders across a variety of industries rate their own personal leadership development as high quality,(4) and approximately 77% of businesses report they struggle to find and develop leaders.(5)
Currently, in healthcare, there is arguably an excess of leadership development programs in the United States and minimal data on quality or outcomes:
82 combined MD-MBA programs.
320 MBA programs in healthcare administration.
395 universities offering a leadership degree.
50% of hospitals with leadership development programs (80% developed internally).
2,045 generic leadership development programs from various sources.
An unknown number of professional associations, consulting/search services, private equity, and non-traditional leadership initiatives of assorted types.
References
Developing the Next Generation of Physician Executives. Jackson Physician Search, Medical Group Management Association. October 2024. https://www.jacksonphysiciansearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/JPS-MGMA-Physician-Leadership-Whitepaper-FINAL-10.2024.pdf .
Kayser A. World’s Best Hospitals 2025. Newsweek. February 26, 2025. https://rankings.newsweek.com/worlds-best-hospitals-2025-top-250/united-states-america .
Global Insight Services. Leadership Development Program Market. April 2025. https://www.globalinsightservices.com/reports/leadership-development-program-market/ .
DDI Team. The State of Leadership Development. DDI blog. March 19, 2025. https://www.ddiworld.com/blog/state-of-leadership-development .
Kizer K. 35+ Powerful Leadership Statistics [2023]: Things All Aspiring Leaders Should Know. ZIPPIA.com. June 29, 2023. https://www.zippia.com/advice/leadership-statistics/ .