There is evidence that doctors like the term 'leadership' and certainly prefer it to 'management'. Leadership holds a certain mystique which is unhelpful as it may be interpreted as a skill with which only the selected few are born. If you don’t believe me ask any group of doctors under the age of 30 if they are leaders – you will only need the fingers of one hand to count!
When they write the history of the last twenty years of the NHS, what will they say about the medical profession? Justifiably, they should make a lot of technological change and advances in treatments… but then they always do which allows the majority of us to sit back and bask in the reflected glory of the relatively small number of pioneers.