下一个专业：疗法的CEOHealthCare组织面临着不断增长的申诉

Today, healthcare leadersin many countries are navigating an era of accelerating complexity,defined by financial pressures, shifting demographics, and evolving consumer expectations andcare delivery models. To meet this moment, CEOs will need to guide their organizations througha period of reinvention and reimagination—in service of achieving both mission and margin.Physicians may be well suited to answer this call, bringing with them a desire to improve patientcare and the strengths of clinical training. In our recent McKinsey Physician Leadership Survey,more than half the respondents cite an interest in broadening their impact on patients as a topmotivator for expanding their leadership mandate (see sidebar “Research methodology”).1Andgiven the CEO role’s unmatched ability to shape enterprise direction and patient outcomes atscale, it’s not surprising that many of these physicians aspire to lead from the CEO’s seat.In fact, nearly 60 percent of surveyed US physician leaders expressed interest in becoming aCEO—a striking contrast to the roughly 15 percent of healthcare CEOs in the United Statestoday who come from clinical backgrounds.2This ambition prompts a consequential question forthe future of healthcare: How can this aspiration be harnessed so that the next generation ofphysician CEOs can successfully deliver both health outcomes and enterprise performance?This article is the first in a series that will address this question. Building on decades ofMcKinsey research on how to support CEOs across the four seasons of their tenure and on whatdefines CEO excellence across industries (see sidebar “CEO excellence”), we turn our attentionhere to an extraordinary yet often underrepresented group of leaders: physicians. Ourconversations with US physician and nonphysician healthcare and life sciences CEOs, CEOcoaches, executives, and executive recruiters reveal that there is significant untapped potentialfor physicians to enter their next specialty and lead healthcare and life sciences as future CEOs.From leading care to leading companiesCultivating the pipeline of physician leaders requires closing the skills gaps by building businessand leadership experiences, which are often overlooked in conventional medical training;addressing the challenges that arise from perceptions of physicians’ capabilities; and unlockingphysicians’ leadership potential by honing the strengths gained through clinical training.Closing skills gaps and addressing perception challengesSkills and experience gaps along with perception barriers—specifically, negative externalperceptions about physicians’ business or leadership skills—are the top self-reportedchallenges to transitioning into leadership positions, according to our survey respondents (60percent and 52 percent, respectively).3Indeed, many physicians enter the workforce in theirthirties after years of intensive training but with limited exposure to business practices. Bycontrast, their nonclinical peers have typically spent years working with budgets and buildingstrategic experience.Limited business fluency results in a self-reinforcing cycle. In our survey, physician leaders1The 2025 McKinsey Physician Leadership Survey (n = 296) asked physician leaders to rank up to five reasons that motivatedthem to pursue leadership roles among ten options and “other.” On average, respondents ranked between four and five optionsfrom this list.2Includes CEOs of top 50 provider health systems by 2024 net patient service revenue, top 50 pharmaceutical companies by2024 prescription sales, top 50 health insurance companies by 2024 total number of covered members, and top 50 medicaldevice and technology companies by 2024 total revenue.3The 2025 McKinsey Physician Leadership Survey (n = 296) asked physician leaders to rank up to five challenges—out of sixoptions and “other”—that they perceive physicians face in transitioning from clinical training and practice to a leadership role. Onaverage, respondents ranked four options from this list.The next specialty: The physician CEO Research methodologyFor this article,we led in-depth interviews with healthcare and life sciences executives, and we alsogathered insights through internal discussions and focus groups across the McKinsey Healthcare andCEO Excellence Practices. In addition, we launched the McKinsey Physician Leadership Survey.Interviews were conducted with 27 physician and nonphysician CEOs and executives acrosshospitals, health systems, health insurance organizations, and life sciences companies, as well as withexecutive recruiters, CEO coaches, and investors. We also had discussions with more than 20 seniorpartners and partners from McKinsey’s Healthcare, Life Sciences, and CEO Excellence Practices, andled five internal focus groups with physician colleagues. In these interviews, discussions, and focusgroups, people shared details of their personal leadership journeys and their observations ofphysicians’ unique leadership traits and emerging