title: Potential challenges facing distributed leadership in health care: evidence from the UK National Health Service.
abstract: The discourse of leaderism in health care has been a subject of much academic and practical debate. Recently, distributed leadership (DL) has been adopted as a key strand of policy in the UK National Health Service (NHS). However, there is some confusion over the meaning of DL and uncertainty over its application to clinical and non-clinical staff. This article examines the potential for DL in the NHS by drawing on qualitative data from three co-located health-care organisations that embraced DL as part of their organisational strategy. Recent theorising positions DL as a hybrid model combining focused and dispersed leadership; however, our data raise important challenges for policymakers and senior managers who are implementing such a leadership policy. We show that there are three distinct forms of disconnect and that these pose a significant problem for DL. However, we argue that instead of these disconnects posing a significant problem for the discourse of leaderism, they enable a fantasy of leadership that draws on and supports the discourse.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Natural Resources Law Policy and Management, University of Dundee.
authors.forename: Graeme
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Nic
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Beech
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: MacIntosh
authors.forename: Stacey
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bushfield
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D017146:Models, Organizational; D015279:Organizational Culture; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: distributed leadership; engagement; hybrid leadership