Leading with heart: Why compassionate leadership is an essential part of effective neurorehabilitation

There is robust and increasing evidence that neurorehabilitation is effective for loss of function following neurological illness or acquired brain injury. To be successful, it is recommended that neurorehabilitation be guided by an individual’s goals and delivered by a coordinated team of professionals with specialist and interdisciplinary skills. Despite a significant evidence base around the importance of leadership in healthcare, leadership style as an essential component of effective neurorehabilitation has typically not been considered in detail or well-integrated into neurorehabilitation guidelines. In this brief paper we describe why a compassionate and collaborative leadership approach is ideally suited to neurorehabilitation work and call for further research into how leadership style affects outcomes in neurorehabilitation.