Health system leaders are juggling heightened uncertainties in 2025, including financial challenges and workforce shortages.
The organizations that can thrive in this era will not necessarily be those with the strongest balance sheet or largest footprint, but rather those led by CEOs combining strategic clarity with dexterity, according to a Dec. 4 report from SullivanCotter.
SullivanCotter’s sister firm Lotis Blue gathered data from 20 of its highest-performing clients to identify the attributes and competencies that will define success in the next chapter of healthcare. The firm partnered with Hogan Assessments to apply its leadership assessment framework to identify the traits distinguishing high-performing health system CEOs.
While technical and operational expertise were important to CEO effectiveness, they were not as important as cognitive, relational and adaptive capabilities, according to the report. The highest-value behaviors were distilled into 10 competencies Lotis Blue refers to as the “Vital Ten.”
The firm identified four domains of “future-ready” CEOs: strategic mindset, execution engine, cultural leadership and adaptive capacity, of which the “Vital Ten” are a part.
Strategic mindset
1. Sound judgment and decisive action: Makes timely, well-reasoned calls on risk, capital and care.
2. Foresight and strategic navigation: Reads policy and market winds early, setting a course for the system and taking disciplined risks.
3. Systems thinking and market insights: Connects clinical realities with industry signals for smarter decision-making.
Execution engine
4. Leading change and transformation: Champions new models of care and pushes past roadblocks.
5. Relentless drive for results: Consistently transfers plans into measurable gains.
6. Enterprise accountability: Holds oneself and other leaders to clear financial, clinical and access commitments.
Cultural leadership
7. Mobilizing teams and talent with empathy: Builds trusting teams and leads with empathy.
8. Integrity as leadership currency: Acts with professionalism and honesty to earn trust of patients, staff, payers and regulators.
9. Clear and compelling communication: Cuts through complexity with language that informs, persuades and rallies stakeholders.
Adaptive capacity
10. Navigating ambiguity with confidence: Makes progress amid uncertainty and shields teams from noise.
“The research makes clear that the next generation of CEOs will be defined by balance: ambition tempered by humility, decisiveness grounded in ethics, curiosity guided by discipline,” the report said. “They will combine analytical rigor with human insight, uniting mission and margin, data and compassion.”
