TY - JOUR T1 - Leadership and decision making: a skill for all? JF - Future Hospital Journal JO - Future Hosp J SP - 155 LP - 156 DO - 10.7861/futurehosp.2-3-155 VL - 2 IS - 3 AU - Timothy W Evans Y1 - 2015/10/01 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/2/3/155.abstract N2 - Leadership: a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task – Martin Chemers1Make a decision. Make a DECISION. Make ANY decision. Make it NOW! – staff sergeant to officer cadet, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (2012).The above definition and quotation respectively provide your editor with food for thought concerning the concept of leadership, which is the special focus of this issue of Future Hospital Journal. On the one hand this appears to be a collaborative and persuasive skill exercised in measured and controlled circumstances; while on the other it involves taking immediate responsibility for executing a task with potentially profound consequences for all involved, and moreover doing so when tired, hungry and challenged by imperfect knowledge and understanding of the situation in which the leader finds themselves. Parallels between this military approach, in which the challenge of leading more experienced operatives through complex manoeuvres is imposed on the successful trainee immediately after qualification, with that applied to pre-registration house officers in 1979 (the year of your editor's graduation) seem superficially to be numerous, excepting the element of physical danger. Thus, a one-in-two rota leading to progressive exhaustion, insertion into the ‘frontline’ with minimal experience immediately post medical school, and the need to convey authority to nursing and allied health professionals with immensely more experience and ability than oneself when fearful of the consequences of ‘getting it wrong’ are strangely familiar concepts.So if this is how leadership is exerted, how can we know if we are ever going to be up to the task? Maybe the armed forces again show the way. The systems employed by Admiralty Interview or Army Officer Selection Boards have been developed over decades and are designed to … ER -