Beyond Expertise: The Critical Need for Interdisciplinary Leadership in Healthcare

In the health fields, we often rightly celebrate clinical excellence and technical expertise. While these are undoubtedly crucial, we would argue that there's a vital element missing from our healthcare leadership equation: the means to create psychologically safe spaces where innovation can flourish, and transformation can take root.

Psychological safety refers to the feeling of being able to ask questions, admit mistakes and question procedure without fear of being seen as incompetent or inexperienced. Systematic review suggests it is a key factor in healthcare improvement or innovation, but that it can be difficult to foster through targeted interventions.¹  This may be because traditional advice on how to foster psychological safety – such as to ‘normalise failure’ – feels unrealistic in health fields, where stakes are always high.  

An alternative way that leaders can promote psychological safety is to learn from interdisciplinary practice:  where asking ‘basic’ questions or querying how something is done are positive ways to pursue multiple perspectives. When leaders see that their most important skills lie in their ability to work across domains, rather than to hold tightly to their background expertise, they can find it easier to practice the questioning, open attitude necessary for innovation to develop.  

Striving to be more interdisciplinary means seeking multiple perspectives that lie outside your field of expertise and thinking in terms of networks and relationships to understand how different concerns connect.  How else can being more interdisciplinary meet critical needs?

Firstly, being interdisciplinary is a route to genuine systems thinking. Connecting the insights of different functional or professional perspectives allows leaders to see how changes in one area ripple through organisations, communities, and supply chains. Leaders with this habit become more alert to opportunities for change presented by factors outside their immediate organisational boundaries.  

Secondly, interdisciplinary leaders can act as cultural bridges. They can translate between different professional languages - helping clinicians understand operational constraints, enabling managers to appreciate clinical priorities, and ensuring technologists grasp frontline realities.  

Third, being more interdisciplinary is a way to develop emotionally intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EI) has been clearly identified as a key quality for those working in the health field.² But to exercise empathy (a key ingredients of what’s measured as EI), clinicians and technical experts need to be able to think, feel and communicate beyond their specialisms.  

The healthcare sector faces unprecedented challenges - from mounting waiting lists to workforce burnout. Yet our response often focuses solely on technical solutions, missing the human element that makes or breaks successful change. We prioritise the ‘what’ - new technologies, frameworks, and processes - while overlooking the ‘how’ – the interactions and interpersonal dynamics that determine whether these initiatives succeed or fail.

Consider this: A brilliantly designed scientific breakthrough means little if staff feel unable to speak up about implementation challenges. A cutting-edge digital transformation project will falter if teams don't feel psychologically safe enough to admit when they're struggling to adapt.

What we need are leaders who can weave together diverse perspectives - professionals who understand both the complexity of healthcare systems and the nuanced art of human interaction. These interdisciplinary leaders:

• Foster psychological safety through authentic, transparent communication

• Build collaborative networks across traditional silos

• Balance data-driven decision-making with empathetic understanding

• Create spaces for productive conflict and innovation

• Develop other leaders who share these capabilities

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The evidence is compelling: organisations that prioritise psychological safety and emotional intelligence alongside technical excellence consistently outperform their peers. Yet our leadership development programmes often remain stubbornly focused on technical competencies and theoretical frameworks. We are changing this in the UK Health Security Agency with a renewed focus on leadership expectations.

We believe that it is time for a shift in how we develop and value healthcare leaders. We need to place equal emphasis on the ability to create trust, build bridges between disciplines, and foster environments where honest dialogue can flourish. This isn't just about being ‘nice’ - it's about creating the conditions where genuine transformation becomes possible.

What are your thoughts on this critical skills gap in healthcare leadership? Have you experienced the impact of leaders who excel at building psychological safety and bridging disciplinary divides?

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Footnotes:

¹ O’Donovan, R., McAuliffe, E. A systematic review exploring the content and outcomes of interventions to improve psychological safety, speaking up and voice behaviour. BMC Health Serv Res20, 101 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-4931-2

² Horne MJ, Allbright M, Galbraith DA, Patel A. Emotional Intelligence in Medicine: An Investigation of the Significance for Physicians, Residents, and Medical Students - A Systematic Review. J Surg Educ. 2024 Dec;81(12):103307. doi: 10.1016/j.jsurg.2024.103307. Epub 2024 Oct 30. PMID: 39471567.

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