ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the good leadership behaviours contained within the Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons (NOTSS) leadership category. It provides a practical and useable body of knowledge on the leadership skills that can be used to improve the safe delivery of surgical care within the operating room. The leadership category emphasizes that one of a surgeon’s main responsibilities is to maximize team performance and ensure safe and effective team functioning, in addition to completion of the surgical task. As with all of the NOTSS categories, leadership is subdivided into three elements: setting and maintaining standards, supporting others and coping with pressure. The chapter briefly discusses the Surgeons’ Leadership Inventory (SLI), which details intra-operative leadership behaviours. The SLI offers a detailed bottom-up approach to understand intra-operative leadership utilizing the elements discussed in NOTSS and providing additional components, expanding the three-element structure to an eight-element structure.
