[Leadership and communication]

Abstract

Medical leadership requires specific communication skills in order to meet professional demands. Communicative behaviour is usually highly automated and not necessarily conscious. Managerial communication competes against elaborated but not role-specific behaviour patterns, especially in critical situations. Accordingly, competent medical leadership requires the awareness of individual communication habits as well as the knowledge and ability to use conversation techniques suitable for a specific situational context. The training of leadership-related communication techniques requires the de-automation of existing skills and a problem-oriented construction and re-automation of new communication techniques.