Responsible Leadership: Strategic Versus Integrative Practices in Complex System Transformation

Katja K. Hleb (), Tomaž Schara and Philip H. Mirvis
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Katja K. Hleb: School of Business and Economics, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Tomaž Schara: IEDC Bled School of Management, 4260 Bled, Slovenia
Philip H. Mirvis: Babson College, Park, MA 02457, USA

Administrative Sciences, 2025, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: Systems of national importance like national health care systems, even if historically and culturally diverse, are today facing similar problems. One way to address them is through responsible leadership orientations and practices that promote complex problem solving and multiple stakeholder relations. Here, we focus on challenges facing leaders in two historically distinct public health care systems, that of the UK (NHS) and the Republic of Slovenia (JZS), in terms of (a) costs versus care; (b) navigating regulations and bureaucracy; and (c) meeting the needs of staff versus patients. Then, we compare how responsible leadership, expressed in the form of the strategist versus integrator orientation of leader, could help to mitigate these problems. Analysing these two forms of responsible leadership, which successively express more mental maturity and practical acumen, illustrates their relative strengths in reconciling multiple economic and social interests, operational challenges, and public concerns in different national health system contexts. This highlights responsible leadership as a means to inform policy making and practice in public health care systems and opens up a vital discussion on the importance of leadership to ensure the human right to a healthy and fulfilling life.

Keywords: national health care system; complex system leadership; responsible leadership; constructive development of mind; health care; public system; policy making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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