Ten minutes with Tom Hurst, Medical Director, London’s Air Ambulance

Correspondence to Professor Amit Nigam, School of Business, City, University of London, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK;Amit.Nigam.1@city.ac.uk Biography Tom is a consultant in prehospital care at Bart’s Health and consultant in intensive care medicine at King’s College Hospital. First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership? I think something that has served me well is the idea of positive regard, the assumption of positive intent. [...]you have to put in place a command structure or a decision-making structure, and then you have to put in place a communication structure. Any particular surprises? I was slightly surprised at how many people took a while to accept that the scale of the problem was such that we, as an air ambulance service, didn’t have a prominent role to play that was directly focused on the pandemic.

Public Health and Health Sector Crisis Leadership During Pandemics: A Review of the Medical and Business Literature.

The global scale and unpredictable nature of the current COVID-19 pandemic have put a significant burden on health care and public health leaders, for whom preparedness plans and evidence-based guidelines have proven insufficient to guide actions. This article presents a review of empirical articles on the topics of "crisis leadership" and "pandemic" across medical and business databases between 2003 (since SARS) and-December 2020 and has identified 35 articles for detailed analyses. We use the articles' evidence on leadership behaviors and skills that have been key to pandemic responses to characterize the types of leadership competencies commonly exhibited in a pandemic context. Task-oriented competencies, including preparing and planning, establishing collaborations, and conducting crisis communication, received the most attention. However, people-oriented and adaptive-oriented competencies were as fundamental in overcoming the structural, political, and cultural contexts unique to pandemics.

Seeing and managing the icebergs

[...]they may not always have the priority they merit on every leadership agenda, both during the COVID-19 crisis and in normal times. [...]the leadership challenges of addressing the socially structured health disparities may not have received the research attention they deserve. [...]a black or Asian female leader can be judged negatively for behaviours that are acceptable or even valued in a white male leader.8 9 In response to these challenges, we will shine a light on diversity and inclusion and we will broaden and change ideas of leaders and leadership. In a recent article in BMJ Leader, Gilmartin et al focus on diversity and gender balance among leaders as an important organisational capacity, and offer tangible advice on how this capacity can be developed.10 Gender diversity in leadership can be enhanced through the combination of mentorship, talent management, training and network opportunities, improvements to advertising, interview panel diversity and succession planning.8 Talent needs to be nurtured, and organisations need policies for inclusion and talent management that embraces and promotes diversity. Leadership development programs for physicians: a systematic review.

Ten minutes with Dr Jennifer Ramsey, Wellness Officer, Respiratory Institute, Cleveland Clinic

First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership? Special considerations for work schedule: we gathered information about physicians’ personal circumstances and unique needs before creating COVID-19 work schedules, sometimes requiring us to coordinate with other institutes. Virtual social events: happy hours, wine tasting and cooking classes taught by one of our own What events in your past experience are most informing your leadership in this pandemic? I was in my second month of pulmonary/critical care fellowship and was assigned to work in the intensive care unit when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana. Childcare is a challenge people have handled with grace so far, but the lack of available childcare, lost educational opportunities for children, and uncertainty of school availability/what school will look like in the fall create enormous strain on and anxiety among healthcare workers with children.

Ten minutes with Hassan Khouli, chair of Department of Critical Care Medicine, Respiratory Institute, Cleveland Clinic

Dr Khouli has special expertise in the evaluation and management of patients with complex critical illnesses including sepsis and septic shock, ARDS, multiorgan failure and decision-making at the end of life. Dr Khouli leads the Enterprise-Wide Department of Critical Care Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic that oversees 12 adult ICUs at eight hospitals including Main Campus and seven regional hospitals with over 170 ICU beds. First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership? During the COVID-19 era, we as leaders have been focusing on protecting our vulnerable caregivers and teams from exposure to the COVID-19 virus and supporting their mental health and well-being as one of the most important priorities, while we aim continue to provide the best care for our patients.

Ten minutes with Zisis Kozlakidis, Head of Laboratory Services and Biobanking at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization

Correspondence to Professor Amit Nigam, Cass Business School, City, University of London, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK;Amit.Nigam.1@city.ac.uk Biography Dr Zisis Kozlakidis, PhD, MBA, FLS, is the head of Laboratory Services and Biobanking at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/WHO). First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership? On the academic side I am a lead editor for the COVID-19 special topic and related publications through the Frontiers Publishing House,1 including 15 participating journals, such as Frontiers in Medicine, Frontiers in Public Health, Frontiers in Health Communication, and more. On the clinical side, we have supported a number of global pathology initiatives, such as the COVID Digital Pathology Repository (COVID-DPR) led by the National Institutes of Health, USA.2 At the International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization, I am head of Laboratory Services and Biobanking.

Ten minutes with Dr Raed A Dweik, Chairman of the Respiratory Institute at the Cleveland Clinic

Dr Dweik is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, the American College of Chest Physicians, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the American Heart Association, the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute and the American Thoracic Society. Dr Dweik earned his medical degree from the University of Jordan before moving to the USA for internal medicine training at Wright State University, followed by a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership? Tell us a little bit about your leadership role and how it is changing as a result of the pandemic? I lead the Respiratory Institute at the Cleveland Clinic which is home to pulmonary medicine, critical care, infectious diseases and allergy/immunology.

This is different

Correspondence to Professor Amit Nigam, Cass Business School, City, University of London, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK;Amit.Nigam.1@city.ac.uk Martin Luther King Jr, in the midst of the civil rights movement, referred to the ongoing protests by noting, ‘It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment’.1 Broaden the context to the entire world as it faces and responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, and his words resonate today. On 27th February 2020, the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Systems Sciences and Engineering reported 82 700 cases worldwide, most of these in China;just over 1 month later, on 1st April 2020, that number was exceeded by cases in Italy (105 792), Spain (102 136) and the USA (189 633), while the global figure stood at 873 767.2 On the same date and time, deaths worldwide numbered 43 288, with the Imperial College COVID-19 response team estimating that unmitigated, the pandemic could lead to 40 million deaths globally this year.3 Allied to the health impact there is the socio-economic one. On 25 March 2020 it was estimated that over a quarter of the world’s population were already living in some form of ‘lockdown’ with restricted mobility and civil liberties.5 The physical and mental health impacts of prolonged domestic confinement, limitations on activity and exercise, loss of income and employment, to say nothing of diversion of existing health resources to counter COVID-19, are as yet unquantified but will be significant.