The Emerging Health Leaders network experience: Reflections and lessons learned from a grassroots movement.

The Emerging Health Leaders (EHL) network was established in 2006 to enhance the leadership capacity of early careerists in the health sector in Canada. Ten years later, the development of the next generation of health leaders continues to be a focus for system leaders. Despite the rhetoric, financial investments in leadership development remain stagnant. This article describes the network's experience in supporting the professional development needs of aspiring leaders across Canada. Successes and challenges regarding the development of the network are discussed, as are the results from a recent benchmarking survey, which identify remaining gaps and priorities for aspiring young leaders. Recommendations are also provided-based on the EHL experience-about how senior leaders can look to support and leverage the contributions of young leaders.

Engaging the next generation of health leaders: perspectives of emerging health leaders.

Identifying and engaging the next generation of emerging health leaders (EHLs) is a foremost challenge for the Canadian healthcare system. If intellectual capital is the currency of the 21st century, identifying and developing EHLs must be a strategic objective of innovative and progressive health organizations. We have integrated our experiential knowledge with some relevant findings from the literature and data collected from a cohort of EHLs to assist senior leaders and organizations with this challenge.