Enabling leadership in practice: examining IT implementation in healthcare organisations

A review of current literature identifies a growing awareness and appreciation of complexity models of leadership and their significance for managing in complex organisational contexts. Recent research in this area (Murphy et al 2017) has identified ‘enabling dualisms’ within the enabling category of complexity leadership practice along with the previously identified administrative and adaptive categories. This paper draws on that research to explore that applicability of the concepts and types to cases in healthcare management. The paper applies the same methodology used in Murphy et al (2017) to three cases of information technology (IT) projects in healthcare settings to assess the extent to which the practices identified in the earlier paper are consistent with those found in the new cases and extant theory. We conclude that: 1) the general model of complexity leadership stands up to second application in the healthcare IT context, 2) that there are a small number of modifications to the types of leadership practices previously identified, and 3) the basic types and dynamics of ‘enabling dualisms’ appear to be slightly different in the healthcare ICT cases, but that further research is needed to draw any conclusions therefrom. We conclude with some methodological reflections on studying complexity leadership using case data, and recommendations for further research.