How physician CEOs hone the double-edged sword of clinical training

医生出身的首席执行官如何磨砺临床训练这把“双刃剑”

Physicians are uniquely positioned to lead the future of healthcare. They understand the system from the inside, see failures firsthand, and carry the trust of clinicians, patients, and communities. Additionally, physicians are well suited to make tradeoffs between operational efficiency, patient experience, and care quality to overcome a critical hurdle facing healthcare organizations globally: sustaining affordable and high-quality care. Yet the path from physician to CEO remains opaque and infrequently traveled. 医生在引领医疗保健行业的未来方面具有独特优势。他们从内部了解医疗体系，亲眼目睹其弊端，并深得临床医生、患者和社区的信任。此外，医生非常善于在运营效率、患者体验和护理质量之间进行权衡，从而克服全球医疗机构面临的关键难题：实现可负担且高质量的护理。然而，从医生到CEO的职业路径依然模糊，且鲜有人走过。

Through our conversations with almost 40 physician CEOs (see sidebar “Research methodology”), we gained insight on how they navigated their journey to leadership. While their paths varied, the mindsets they embodied were strikingly consistent: a strong sense of purpose, rigorous self-leadership, and curiosity beyond the bedside. They sought to understand nonclinical areas not as a departure from medicine but to give them the skills needed to fix the systemic dysfunction that affects their patients. 通过与近40位医生CEO的交流（见侧边栏“研究方法”），我们深入了解了他们如何开启领导力之旅。尽管路径各异，但他们的思维模式却惊人地一致：强烈的使命感、严谨的自我领导力，以及对临床之外领域的好奇心。他们寻求了解非临床领域，并非为了脱离医学，而是为了掌握解决影响患者的系统性功能障碍所需的技能。

These mindsets translated directly into specific behaviors: Physician CEOs stepped into complex, high-impact problems, often assuming responsibility ahead of formal authority because the work demanded it. For example, one physician CEO notes she quickly realized the importance of actively participating in enterprise-wide strategic decision-making.¹Unless otherwise noted, all quotations and comments in this article that are attributed to leaders come from unpublished interviews conducted as part of McKinsey research. She committed to stepping forward to ensure clinicians had a voice at the table.这些思维模式直接转化为具体的行为：医生CEO们勇于应对复杂且影响深远的问题，往往在正式授权之前就主动承担责任，因为工作需要他们这样做。例如，一位医生CEO指出，她很快意识到积极参与全企业战略决策的重要性。1除非另有说明，本文中所有归于领导者的引语和评论均来自麦肯锡研究中进行的未发表访谈。她致力于挺身而出，确保临床医生在决策桌上拥有话语权。

Nurturing the right mindsets and behaviors is not enough. The path to CEO also requires broadening one’s leadership profile. Doing so means confronting a new set of responsibilities, similar to those surfaced in McKinsey’s CEO Excellence research and thousands of conversations with CEOs across industries and with varied backgrounds (see sidebar “CEO excellence”). The best CEOs set the direction, engage the board, align the organization, mobilize through leaders, connect with stakeholders, and manage personal effectiveness.仅仅培养正确的思维模式和行为是不够的。通往CEO之路还需要拓宽个人的领导力画像。这意味着要面对一系列新的责任，这与麦肯锡的“CEO卓越研究”以及与各行业、各背景CEO进行的数千次对话中浮现出的责任相似（见侧边栏“CEO卓越之道”）。优秀的CEO能够设定方向、与董事会互动、协调组织、通过领导者进行动员、与利益相关者建立联系，并管理个人效能。

In this article, we offer a framework physicians can use to amplify, adapt, acquire, and architect their transition from clinical excellence to CEO excellence, as well as an approach for institutions to realize the substantial enterprise leadership potential of physicians.在本文中，我们提供了一个框架，医生可以利用它来放大、调整、获取和构建从临床卓越到CEO卓越的转型，同时也为机构实现医生巨大的企业领导潜力提供了一种方法。

A development framework for aspiring physician CEOs有志成为医生CEO的发展框架

Clinical training shapes how physicians think and act. As physicians progress from governing themselves to leading teams and shaping enterprise direction, they discover that the strengths which distinguish them at the bedside can either elevate or constrain them. Physicians who’ve made it to the CEO seat embrace four behaviors—amplifying, adapting, acquiring, and architecting—to effectively channel their clinical training and expand their skillset for enterprise impact.临床训练塑造了医生的思维和行为方式。随着医生从自我管理走向领导团队和规划企业方向，他们发现，那些在临床工作中使他们脱颖而出的优势，既可能成就他们，也可能限制他们。那些成功坐上CEO职位的医生采用了四种行为——放大、调整、获取和构建——以有效地引导他们的临床训练，并扩展其技能组合以产生企业影响力。

Amplify the strengths that serve you beyond the bedside放大那些在临床之外同样适用的优势

Composure under pressure is a consistent point of emphasis among interviewees. Years of practicing medicine train them to make decisions when outcomes truly matter, when a delay could cost a patient their life, and when everyone in the room is looking to them for direction. One CEO describes being called in to place a pacemaker while critical equipment was malfunctioning. There was no time to wait for perfect conditions. He assessed what they had, took responsibility, and acted because someone’s life depended on it. Experiences like that build more than clinical skills. They also instill steadiness and the ability to remain grounded in moments of executive tension. 在压力下保持冷静是受访者一致强调的一点。多年的医学实践训练他们能够在结果至关重要、延误可能危及患者生命、且房间内每个人都指望他们指明方向时做出决策。一位CEO描述了在关键设备故障时被叫去安装起搏器的经历。当时没有时间等待完美条件。他评估了现有资源，承担起责任并果断行动，因为这关乎生命。这样的经历不仅培养了临床技能，还磨练了沉稳的性格，以及在执行层紧张时刻保持定力的能力。

Closely related is clinical diagnostic reasoning, or the ability to triage disparate signals to cut through noise and concentrate on what matters most. Physician CEOs describe applying that ability to filter noise and frame hypotheses to organizational challenges. As their remit grows more complex, the ability to prioritize effectively becomes a core leadership advantage.与之密切相关的是临床诊断推理，即从纷繁复杂的信号中进行分诊，排除干扰并专注于最重要问题的能力。医生CEO们描述了如何运用这种能力来过滤噪音，并为组织挑战构建假设。随着他们的职责范围日益复杂，有效优先排序的能力成为了一项核心领导力优势。

Our interviews also revealed additional strengths worth amplifying. Many point to comfort with difficult conversations—shaped by years of having to deliver tough news—showing up as candid, direct leadership that earns trust. Others emphasize stamina and disciplined work ethic cultivated through clinical training. 我们的访谈还揭示了其他值得放大的优势。许多人指出，由于多年来必须传达坏消息，他们能够从容应对艰难的对话，表现出坦诚、直接的领导风格，从而赢得信任。其他人则强调了通过临床训练培养出的耐力和严谨的职业道德。

The specific strengths each physician amplifies might be idiosyncratic, as is the manner in which physicians develop them. Some are cultivated deliberately, while others emerge organically. What ultimately sets physician CEOs apart is not the traits themselves but physicians’ ability to identify, and then amplify, the attributes of their clinical training that are also effective leadership skills. 每位医生放大的具体优势可能因人而异，他们培养这些优势的方式也各不相同。有些是有意培养的，而有些则是自然形成的。最终使医生CEO脱颖而出的不是特质本身，而是医生识别并放大其临床训练中那些同样有效的领导力技能的能力。

Adapt clinical instincts for enterprise leadership调整临床直觉以适应企业领导力

Physician CEOs learn that not all clinical strengths are created equally; some need to be adapted when leading an organization. 医生CEO们认识到，并非所有的临床优势都是平等的；有些在领导组织时需要进行调整。

Physicians are trained to make decisions in different ways depending on the context. For example, during a “code,” or a medical emergency, they must act with insufficient data, because waiting for more information could cause harm. However, in a “clinic,” or a less urgent situation, they may be trained to pursue diagnostic certainty. Physician CEOs describe learning to adapt not their diagnostic rigor itself but their judgment about when to prioritize speed versus certainty. One physician CEO reflects that he was overly conservative early in his CEO tenure, because he believed he needed to be 99 percent sure—the boardroom was a new environment and felt more like a clinic, after all. Over time, he shifted his mindset and behavior, recognizing that excellent CEOs sometimes need to make critical decisions based on incomplete information, even in the absence of an emergency. Excessive analysis, as well as misapplied decisiveness, does not just affect decision quality; it drains organizational energy and focus. 医生受过训练，根据不同环境以不同方式做出决策。例如，在“急救（code）”或医疗紧急情况下，他们必须在数据不足的情况下采取行动，因为等待更多信息可能导致伤害。然而，在“门诊”或非紧急情况下，他们可能被训练去追求诊断的确定性。医生CEO们描述说，他们学会了调整的不是诊断严谨性本身，而是对何时优先考虑速度还是确定性的判断。一位医生CEO反思道，他在担任CEO初期过于保守，因为他认为自己需要99%的把握——毕竟，董事会是一个新环境，感觉更像门诊。随着时间的推移，他转变了思维和行为，认识到优秀的CEO有时即使在非紧急情况下，也需要在信息不完整的基础上做出关键决策。过度的分析以及误用的果断，不仅会影响决策质量，还会消耗组织的精力和专注力。

Physician CEOs also recognize that just as patients may hesitate to question a physician’s judgment, the same dynamic can quietly take hold in the executive suite. As they once adapted their bedside manner to overcome information asymmetry with patients, in a business context they must similarly unlearn the habit of always having the answers and instead learn to actively solicit and encourage challenge. That means empowering others to speak up, inviting dissent, and building trusted forums where others feel safe to voice their thoughts.医生CEO们还认识到，正如患者可能不敢质疑医生的判断一样，同样的动态也可能悄然出现在行政套房中。正如他们曾经调整床边谈话方式以克服与患者之间的信息不对称一样，在商业环境中，他们必须同样改掉总是拥有答案的习惯，转而学习积极征求和鼓励挑战。这意味着要赋能他人敢于发言，欢迎异议，并建立互信的论坛，让其他人感到可以安全地表达想法。

Additionally, physician CEOs acknowledge that, counterintuitively, deep expertise can create blind spots in familiar areas. In assessing his accomplishments as CEO, one interviewee says that his least successful decisions occurred within his specialty area. His expertise sometimes led him to forgo seeking sufficient input to adequately pressure-test his assumptions. Adapting as a CEO requires institutionalizing greater objective rigor. 此外，医生CEO们承认，反直觉的是，深厚的专业知识可能会在熟悉领域造成盲点。在评估自己作为CEO的成就时，一位受访者表示，他最不成功的决策往往发生在自己的专业领域内。他的专业知识有时导致他放弃寻求足够的意见来充分压力测试自己的假设。作为CEO进行调整，需要制度化更客观的严谨性。

The need to adapt is universal, though the specific adaptations vary by physician leader. Different specialties cultivate distinct instincts, decision-making patterns, and leadership behaviors. As a result, a medical specialist, primary care physician, or surgeon may each face different growth opportunities when stepping into the CEO role.调整的必要性是普遍的，尽管具体的调整因医生领导者而异。不同的专业培养出不同的直觉、决策模式和领导行为。因此，医学专家、初级保健医生或外科医生在担任CEO角色时，可能各自面临不同的成长机遇。

Acquire capabilities clinical training doesn’t teach获取临床训练未教授的能力

More than 85 percent of interviewed physician CEOs emphasize the need for upskilling in new domains, particularly in governance, operations, and finance. Importantly, they do not stress the need to become technical experts but rather the need to be fluent enough to be able to engage credibly.超过85%的受访医生CEO强调需要在新领域提升技能，特别是在治理、运营和财务方面。重要的是，他们强调的不是成为技术专家，而是具备足够的流利度，以便能够进行可信的参与。

Yet, as physician CEOs reflect on their development, many describe leadership itself as the largest skill gap to close. Even those who had served as COOs, division chiefs, or service line leaders note that stepping into enterprise leadership requires a fundamentally different orientation. Three distinct leadership traits that need to be acquired surface repeatedly: the discipline of delegation, the art of influence, and the capacity for enterprise orchestration.然而，当医生CEO反思自己的发展时，许多人将领导力本身描述为需要弥合的最大技能差距。即使是那些曾担任首席运营官（COO）、部门主管或业务线领导者的人也指出，进入企业领导层需要一种根本不同的定位。三种需要获取的独特领导力特质反复出现：授权的纪律、影响力的艺术，以及企业统筹的能力。

The discipline to delegate entails protecting time for what only the CEO can do. Clinical training often rewards the reflex to “just do it myself,” which is the antithesis of how to be an enlightened leader, one physician CEO points out. Physician CEOs describe learning that their value does not lie in outworking others, but in preserving their time and energy for the decisions only they can make. 授权的纪律意味着要保护好时间，专注于只有CEO才能做的事情。一位医生CEO指出，临床训练往往奖励“我自己动手”的反射动作，这与如何成为一名开明的领导者背道而驰。医生CEO们描述说，他们学会了他们的价值不在于比别人做得更多，而在于保留时间和精力，用于只有他们才能做出的决策。

The second required leadership trait involves the ability to influence and inspire others beyond formal authority. The physician is often viewed as the de facto team leader whose decisions are unquestioned, but enterprise leadership is different. Several CEOs describe learning that alignment cannot be assumed just because of authority but requires building coalitions around a shared mission. “Many physicians don’t understand that just being right may not be enough; it is how you say things, how you relate to people that can be as or more important than what you say,” one physician CEO explains.第二个必要的领导力特质涉及在正式职权之外影响和激励他人的能力。医生通常被视为事实上的团队领导者，其决策不容置疑，但企业领导力则不同。几位CEO描述说，他们学会了不能仅仅因为职权就假设达成了一致，而是需要围绕共同使命建立联盟。一位医生CEO解释道：“许多医生不明白，仅仅正确可能是不够的；你说话的方式、你与人相处的方式，可能比你说了什么更重要，甚至同样重要。”

The third trait of enterprise orchestration is akin to being the conductor rather than a soloist—orchestrating an entire organization to perform at its best rather than mastering one’s own performance. At enterprise scale, effectiveness is measured less by individual execution and more by a leader’s ability to design the conditions for performance: clarifying direction, aligning incentives, mobilizing leaders, and ensuring teams can operate optimally so that collective performance exceeds what any one individual can accomplish alone.第三个特质是企业统筹，这类似于担任指挥家而不是独奏家——统筹整个组织以实现最佳表现，而不是精通自己的表演。在企业规模上，效能的衡量标准较少取决于个人执行，而更多取决于领导者设计绩效条件的能力：明确方向、协调激励、动员领导者，并确保团队能够以最佳状态运作，从而使集体绩效超过任何个人单独所能达成的成就。

Architect experiences to accelerate CEO readiness构建经历以加速CEO就绪度

Physician CEOs emphasized that readiness for the top seat did not happen by default but instead was architected over time. Many advanced in their leadership journey by prioritizing roles that maximized their learning velocity rather than climbing the career ladder. They moved laterally or even stepped back if it accelerated exposure to new systems, unfamiliar challenges, or broader impact. In practice, this meant intentional tradeoffs: Some physicians turned down an enterprise chief medical officer role for a hospital president position to learn operations and others returned to school to pursue an MBA. 医生CEO们强调，为最高职位做好准备并非自然发生，而是经过时间推移精心构建的。许多人通过优先选择能最大化学习速度的角色，而不是仅仅为了攀登职业阶梯，来推进他们的领导力之旅。如果能加速接触新系统、不熟悉的挑战或更广泛的影响力，他们会进行横向调动，甚至退后一步。在实践中，这意味着有意的权衡：一些医生拒绝了企业首席医疗官的角色，转而担任医院院长以学习运营，另一些人则重返校园攻读MBA。

As one physician CEO points out, the preordained “I have to do this, then I have to do that” view of career progression is simply wrong. His advice? Physicians should say yes to attractive opportunities and commit to doing them exceptionally even when it isn’t the opportunity they thought was right for them. 正如一位医生CEO指出的那样，那种预设的“我必须先做这个，然后再做那个”的职业发展观是完全错误的。他的建议是？医生应该对有吸引力的机会说“是”，并承诺即使在这些机会并非他们认为适合自己的情况下，也要做到极致。

Just as intentional is how they build perspective. Rather than relying on a single mentor, many described assembling what functioned as a personal advisory network comprising different mentors and voices for different stages of their leadership journey. Coaching was not viewed as a corrective measure but as a deliberate investment in growth and a source of strength.同样有意识的是他们如何建立视角。许多人没有依赖单一的导师，而是描述了如何组建一个个人顾问网络，包含在他们领导力之旅不同阶段的不同导师和声音。教练辅导不被视为一种纠正措施，而被视为对成长的深思熟虑的投资，以及力量的源泉。

Underlying their career choices and use of advisers is disciplined self-calibration. Physician CEOs describe the importance of reassessing their readiness, sometimes intentionally, other times guided by an adviser, or even reactively after a failure. 他们职业选择和顾问使用的基础是严谨的自我校准。医生CEO们描述了重新评估自己准备情况的重要性，有时是有意的，有时是在顾问的引导下，甚至是在失败后的被动反思。

The lessons across this development framework were echoed by other interviewees, including nonphysician CEOs, executive recruiters, CEO coaches, and investors. In their reflections on where physicians most often fall off the CEO track, they reveal a set of predictable pitfalls: moments when clinical strengths, if left unexamined, become constraints, and capability gaps, if left unaddressed, become detrimental. The most effective physician CEOs do not sidestep these hurdles; they meet them deliberately by amplifying what scales, adapting their judgment, acquiring what is missing, and architecting new experiences. 其他受访者，包括非医生CEO、高管猎头、CEO教练和投资者，也呼应了这一发展框架中的经验教训。在反思医生最常在何处偏离CEO轨道时，他们揭示了一系列可预测的陷阱：当临床优势如果不加审视就会变成限制，而能力缺口如果不加解决就会变得有害。最有效的医生CEO不会回避这些障碍；他们通过放大可扩展的特质、调整判断力、获取缺失的能力以及构建新的经验，从容应对这些挑战。

An institutional approach to develop physician CEOs—by design, not chance一种培养医生CEO的机构化方法——通过设计，而非偶然

Physician CEO preparation cannot be left to individuals alone, however. Too often, physician leadership development remains dependent on exceptional individuals emerging at the right moment. The patterns surfaced across our interviews suggest a different approach is needed for physician CEO excellence to become more common rather than exceptional.然而，医生CEO的准备工作不能仅靠个人。医生领导力的发展太过于依赖在特定时刻涌现出的杰出个人。我们在访谈中发现的模式表明，要使医生CEO的卓越成为常态而非个例，需要一种不同的方法。

For institutions, the opportunity is substantial. Their focus must be on how to prepare physicians with the rigor that the CEO role demands. Institutions can begin by confronting the following practical questions:对于机构而言，机会是巨大的。他们的重点必须放在如何以CEO角色所要求的严谨性来培养医生。机构可以从面对以下实际问题开始：

• How clearly are you distinguishing between clinical excellence and CEO potential when identifying emerging physician leaders?在识别新兴医生领导者时，您在多大程度上明确区分了临床卓越与CEO潜力？
• What support exists to help physician leaders adapt clinical judgment for effective enterprise leadership?有哪些支持措施可以帮助医生领导者调整临床判断以实现有效的企业领导？
• Are physicians given deliberate exposure to governance, operations, and enterprise decision-making in your organization or expected simply to “figure it out” and prove themselves promotion-ready?在您的组织中，医生是否获得了接触治理、运营和企业决策的有意机会，还是仅仅被期望“自己摸索”并证明自己已准备好晋升？

Physicians hone their leadership profile through deliberate choices—amplifying and adapting the instincts instilled in their clinical training, while acquiring new skills by intentionally architecting relevant experiences for their growth. The future of physician leadership will be defined not only by individual adaptation but also by organizations that approach CEO readiness with the intentionality and the rigor of a specialty.医生通过深思熟虑的选择来磨砺他们的领导力画像——放大和调整临床训练中灌输的直觉，同时通过有意构建相关的成长经历来获取新技能。医生领导力的未来不仅将由个人的适应能力来定义，还将由那些以专业严谨性和意图来对待CEO就绪度的组织来定义。