Does anyone *not* want to take 'leadership' positions?

[Narmerguy]

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This post took a while to find again, but it came to mind.

You have a pretty good memory. That thread was a good one for fleshing out this argument more.

I think there is confusion on what true leadership is. The reference to "not everyone being leaders" is kind of a cop out. Even if you are at the bottom of the food chain, you have to display certain leadership characteristics to be successful and they are things that can be developed, but rarely are. Doing lots of stuff and being president of a club on campus doesn't mean anything when it comes to actual leadership development, but it is a good way to show you tried.

As a physician, you ARE going to be the boss of someone whether you like it or not. I've seen complete trainwrecks with practices/groups and stellar successes all hinge on the leadership capabilities of the physicians. They all have to be role models. They all have to understand basic ideas in cheesy books like, "How to be a great boss". (Which is actually a quick read and worthwhile if you reflect on it a bit) Modern healthcare is about the team. You can skirt by with being mediocre and not try to improve or you can strive to become better at it. There are people who are naturals at it. For some reason, they just make everyone around them better. That doesn't mean it can't be taught or learned. Most people overestimate their leadership capabilities. I personally struggle with it because I'm a control freak, but hell, I'm working on it.

I'm not sure what you meant by the cop-out bit so I'll bypass that. If you are at the bottom of the food chain (are we talking about the medical structure here?) I absolutely do not believe you have to have leadership skills to be successful. Let's not confuse a lot of skills that are great for leadership that are simply great skills for anyone (communication skills, while valuable for anyone, does not exclusively belong to the domain of leadership).

"Showing you tried" is a sign of good work ethic but not of leadership ability. Again, a good work ethic may serve a leader well, but a good work ethic does not belong exclusively to leadership. If we proceed in this manner we could label any number of desirable traits as leadership skills...like you said in your first sentence, there is some murkiness on what the definition of leadership is.