The first national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) was a health professions leadership development program begun in 1972 that remains in effect as of the publication of this report in 2008. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program established RWJF's long-standing commitment to developing health care leaders.
Since those early days, RWJF has continued to support programs that develop leaders. This report highlights several of the Foundation's key leadership development programs, and pulls together the lessons learned from these various programs about how to develop leaders and what makes for a strong leader.
Each program has a different focus: while one is developing hospital nurse executives, another is working in the ivory tower of academic medicine and another is finding leaders in grassroots organizations striving to better their communities. But they all share the theme of lifting professionals "out of the weeds" to look broadly at their work and how they can create broader impact.
Nurses learn to lead their organizations and gain broader attention for their profession. Young physicians learn skills to influence health care systems and health care policy. Health professionals are inspired to take on roles in the policy sphere. Community leaders are lauded for their local efforts, in order to motivate them to spread their focus or start to operate in a broader arena.