ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a brief overview of leadership theory, considers the current context for leadership in the National Health Service (NHS), examines the nature of current and future leadership roles and describes the work that was undertaken by the former NHS Leadership Centre to support the development of Allied Health Professions (AHP) leadership at all levels in the service. Thinking and theorising about leadership have their roots in the work of Socrates and Xenophon. Socrates taught that professional or technical competence should be a prerequisite for holding a leadership position. Modern studies of leadership began with trait theories in the 1920s, which argued that successful leaders possessed certain inherent qualities, which were present and natural to them and could be identified. Transactional leadership was seen as encouraging performance by making rewards contingent on delivery and only intervening actively when performance did not meet expectations.
