Power in the role of the medical director: what it is and how to get more.

The formal leadership of mental health care organizations commonly resides in an executive director, who may or may not have had clinical training. The medical director is a psychiatrist who reports to the executive director. For some, this arrangement suggests that the medical director lacks or has lost power in the organization. This paper examines more specifically the types of power available to the medical director using French & Raven (1959) and Raven (2008) bases of power framework. The executive director/medical director relationship can be thought of as a relationship between individuals holding formal and informal power, respectively. Although medical directors lack formal or positional power, they potentially have and can gain more informal power based on their recognized clinical/medical expertise, their personal presence and an assertive involvement and focus on the organizational mission.