Time for Doctors Not Just to Heal, but to Lead Change

There is an irony that often escapes our attention. We demand that a doctor be able to make important decisions in complex situations. We expect them to be role models, communicate well, work in teams, adapt to change, and even lead health services. However, when they return to the academic environment as lecturers, the ability to lead is often considered something that will grow on its own. It is as if someone automatically becomes a leader just because one day they are entrusted to be a head of a study programme, a department head, a coordinator, or an institutional leader. Yet leadership is not born from a decree. Leadership is built long before someone holds a position. This is one of the important issues we need to reflect upon in the development of medical education in Indonesia.

Medical lecturers today perform a role far more complex than merely delivering material in a lecture hall. They are educators, clinicians, researchers, student mentors, programme managers, and part of an academic organisation. They must be able to carry out various responsibilities simultaneously and adapt to the demands of an ever-changing environment. In such conditions, leadership is no longer an additional competency. Leadership is part of a lecturer’s professionalism.

Interestingly, research on the leadership competency needs of lecturers in medical faculties shows that the foundation of this leadership has actually grown. Lecturers have built abilities in self-leadership, interpersonal communication, coordination and teamwork, values-based leadership and role modelling, as well as adaptability through academic, clinical, organisational experiences, and daily interactions. This means many lecturers have actually learned to lead without ever being formally taught how to be a leader. They learn when dealing with students who need guidance. They learn when they have to unite opinions within a team. They learn when facing conflict. They learn when they must make decisions amidst limited time and resources. However, learning from experience alone is not enough. This is where a greater challenge emerges.

Research indicates a gap between the leadership competencies already possessed by lecturers and the competencies needed to face the future. These needs include transformational leadership, managerial ability, decision-making, conflict management, strategic planning, priority management, and leadership development and regeneration. In other words, we are moving from the need to simply ‘be able to manage’ towards the need to ‘be able to transform’. Lecturers are not just required to ensure the learning process runs. They need to be able to read change, build a vision, manage complexity, make strategic decisions, and create an academic environment that allows others to develop. That is the essence of transformational leadership.

However, there is one problem: the leadership development of lecturers has largely been informal. These competencies are more often formed from daily practice, the experience of carrying out the three pillars of higher education, organisational involvement, and job demands. Meanwhile, structured leadership training, academic managerial education, and continuous faculty development have not yet fully become part of the system. We must no longer allow the system to learn leadership by chance.