ABSTRACT
As a student or recently qualified practitioner you may well be asking yourself why you should even be thinking about being a leader at this stage of your career. However, leadership in this sense is not about being ‘in charge’ or taking on all the responsibility for a department or ward. From the outset of your career you will be expected to possess and, more importantly, show leadership capabilities across academic, clinical and even social settings. While this may include leading other people for short periods of time or on a particular task, leadership applies as much to leading yourself as it does to leading other people. Understanding and applying EI to this concept will help you communicate to others that you have these leadership abilities and feel confident in demonstrating them.
