4 Ways to Unlock Physicians’ CEO Potential

Developing the next generation of health care CEOs will be no simple task given the field’s rapidly changing landscape. To meet this moment, CEOs will need to guide their organizations through a period of reinvention and reimagination.

Physicians may be well-suited to answer this call, notes a recent McKinsey & Company report, bringing with them a desire to improve patient care and the strengths of clinical training. Clinical training equips physicians to be bilingual leaders, balancing mission and performance as CEOs. This is crucial now, as success hinges on managing clinical change, transforming care models and delivering personalized, patient-centered medicine across the health care value chain.

But if, indeed, the next specialty in health care may become the physician CEO, as the authors suggest, health care executives will need to capitalize on the untapped potential for many physicians and develop the next generation of physician CEOs who can successfully deliver both health outcomes and enterprise performance, while also cultivating the adaptive, systems-level thinking.

Physicians Express Interest in Leading

A recent McKinsey Physician Leadership Survey found that more than half the respondents cite an interest in broadening their impact on patients as a top motivator for expanding their leadership mandate.

Nearly 60% of surveyed physician leaders expressed interest in becoming a CEO — a striking contrast to the roughly 15% of health care CEOs in the U.S. who come from clinical backgrounds, the report states. This begs the question as to how this aspiration can be harnessed so that the next generation of physician CEOs can deliver both improved outcomes and enterprise performance.

The report’s authors argue that the move from leading health care to leading health care organizations will require closing skills gaps and addressing perception challenges.

How to Unlock Physicians’ CEO Potential

1 | Build business and leadership experiences for physicians.

These skills often are overlooked in conventional medical training, the authors note.

Takeaway

Lead with intentionality to help physicians expand their skill sets and provide pathways to new opportunities beyond clinical leadership. Cultivate business and leadership acumen in physicians with purpose and strategy, unlocking their potential to lead across the enterprise. By bridging gaps left by traditional medical training, organizations can empower physicians to drive innovation, influence strategic decisions and shape the future of health care.

2 | Address the challenges that arise from perceptions of physicians’ capabilities.

Skills and experience gaps along with perception barriers — specifically, negative external perceptions about physicians’ business or leadership skills — are the top self-reported challenges to transitioning to leadership positions, survey respondents noted.

Takeaway

Limited business fluency results in a self-reinforcing cycle, the authors explain. This lack of business acumen can restrict opportunities which in turn hinders skill development. This vicious cycle can leave some physicians in clinical leadership roles even when they have the capacity and aspiration to lead beyond the clinical team. To break this cycle, it's essential to address gaps in financial, strategic and market-based knowledge, empowering physicians to navigate broader organizational challenges.

3 | Unlock the leadership potential gained through clinical training.

The instincts gathered through years of medical training — while essential to delivering high-quality care — can be a double-edged sword for enterprise leadership. When appropriately harnessed, these instincts can accelerate leadership development by creating “bilingual physicians” who are fluent across both the clinical and business domains of health care leadership.

Takeaway

Strategy, at its core, involves risk-taking and bold decision-making. Physicians who can untether themselves from a default risk-averse mindset have great potential for professional progress vs. peers, the authors note. As one physician CEO recounted for McKinsey, he had to shift his mindset from “being right 99% of the time to being right 75% of the time.” Once he did that, his clinical experience of making decisions under pressure proved to be a strength.

4 | Pave the physician-CEO pathway.

Unlocking the next generation of physician CEOs will require both individual transformation and organizational commitment. Interviews McKinsey conducted show that a growing number of boards and executives are recognizing physicians’ CEO ambitions and intentionally considering pathways to support their transition from clinical practice to enterprisewide leadership.

Takeaway

To accelerate this shifting paradigm, organizations can take an active role in building “physician leadership factories.” These intentional, well-resourced systems identify, develop and elevate talent from within through structured, longitudinal pathways that proactively cultivate leadership. A critical first step is clearly defining what enterprise leadership looks like for physicians, including the foundational mindsets and behaviors that shape them.