Leadership And Management.

The debate about the dominance of leaders and managers over each other, as a concept continues in literature and popular discussions alike. Management gurus refer to the established four functions of management comprising planning, organising, leading and controlling to establish management as a comprehensive concept to provide all that is required to ensure success for any organisation from a family unit to the affairs of a national government or global organisations.

Leadership experts emphasise the importance of charisma, vision, eloquence and empathy demonstrated by several successful leaders in human history. I think this debate will remain to exist in expert and general forums because of several technicalities surrounding these concepts which still need deeper research and clarifications.

However, one of my recent training sessions on June 23, 2022, at WAPDA Hospital Complex Lahore titled 'leadership and management in healthcare' was an interesting experience to differentiate the role of both leaders and managers in the sector to provide effective and efficient healthcare services to the community. Interestingly participants had to perform dual roles as managers and leaders both due to their unique positions in their institutions as specialist doctors and heads of their respective departments/hospitals.

This kind of hybrid organisational structure always remains demanding when an individual has to exhibit his leadership and managerial activities both at the functional and departmental fronts. This requires expertise in managerial skills and proficiency in the relevant specialisation to influence both line and staff activities.

In the case of healthcare, performing as a specialist demands mastery as a surgeon, a cardiologist, a physician, a gynaecologist and so on while as a head of the department or hospital the same individual needs know-how in human resource management and development, customer (patients and their relatives) relationship management, stakeholders' management, communications skills, financial management, even marketing skills in case of the private sector and so on. This makes the job of healthcare professionals quite challenging and demanding. It is because of this reason that a separate discipline of healthcare/hospital management has evolved around the globe to develop specialised human resources for the sector.

In the case of the subject hospital, like many other public sector hospitals in Pakistan, the management...