THE PRACTICE OF GOOD LEADERSHIP WITHIN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

<正>My university studies and postgraduate training equipped me to be a competent doctor and medical specialist,but in 1976 when I was 30 years old,I was invited to come to Melbourne to establish a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in an university teaching hospital and to be its Director.I had never taken any leadership or management course to equip me to be a leader.Now over 30 years later,on the eve of my retirement from medicine,I look back to reflect on what kind of leader I was over the course of my medical career.What wisdom did I gain over the past 30 years on becoming a good leader,based on learning from the mistakes I had made in exercising the leadership roles I was given within the hospital and university,as well as in the national and international professional arenas? This essay begins with a general principle of good leadership followed by an examination of aspects of pride,power and submission,which if misused or abused,constitute a trilogy of harmful influences on the character of leaders and their wise exercise of good leadership.