In this book, we have created an analytical framework – the Warwick Six C Leadership Framework – in order to make sense of the ‘blooming, buzzing, confusion’ in the field of leadership studies. The Six C Framework provides a lens through which to scrutinise the leadership literature, providing questions to explore from different perspectives and marshalling ideas and evidence to inform practice. The book aims both to provide high-quality concepts, ideas and analysis and also to ensure that these are relevant and valuable for those who take practical leadership roles in healthcare, or who are involved in leadership development in this sector.

There are six elements in this analytical framework: the concepts that are used to define leadership; the characteristics of the roles and resources that have an impact on the types of leadership influence; the contexts of leadership in healthcare; the challenges of leadership in terms of the purposes or goals of leadership; the capabilities of leadership; and the consequences of leadership.

This framework is particularly relevant in the dynamic and changing context of the NHS and of healthcare more generally. The book offers a view of leadership beyond the traditional focus on the individual and argues that leadership needs to be seen as grounded in particular social, organisational and inter-organisational contexts and cultures. There is a need to think not only about leaders as individuals but also about leadership constellations, as leadership is often shared across a group of people with different sources of authority, legitimacy and expertise for different aspects of complex challenges.

Our conclusions are brief, because each of the chapters has summarised key aspects of each element of the framework at the beginning of the chapter and provided implications for policy and practice at the end of each chapter.

Each of the elements of the Warwick Six C Framework offers a set of perspectives and ways of examining the evidence and practice in relation to leadership. For example, the concepts element alerts the reader to the idea that different people may use the language and ideas of leadership to mean very different things, for example, focusing on the person, the position or the processes of leadership, and that therefore it can be helpful to be aware of these different meanings, because this will affect the ways in which leadership is understood, practised and developed.