Healthcare board leadership and governance: conceptual framings and controversies

This chapter explores the challenges for boards within today’s changing healthcare environment. Leadership is the art of influencing people so they enthusiastically move towards the achievement of a goal. Beyond that, leaders must create the right environments to achieve successful outcomes. Based on their fiduciary duty, board members can be expected to be capable leaders. However, the right conditions are needed. The board is an entity with particular connections and responsibilities. For healthcare boards, their interconnectedness can cause controversies. This chapter discusses these controversies in hospital board governance practices, attention is also given to the conceptual framings for healthcare board governance. We conclude with suggested directions for future research.