Combating infections at Maine Medical Center: Insights into complexity-informed leadership from positive deviance

Abstract

A case study of how the organizational change process known as Positive Deviance was used to fight healthcare-associated infections at Maine Medical Center highlights the human and social aspects of leadership in a complex adaptive system. It illustrates that leadership can shape self-organization in a manner that facilitates creative, productive, desirable outcomes. We found influential roles of anxiety, attachment, and relationships in facilitating organizational leadership. We describe how the process of leadership permeated the Medical Center’s hierarchies and networks and reflected emergent power dynamics, which included contemporizing some aspects of traditional managerial authority. The study contributes to the management literature by clarifying the dynamics and qualities associated with change in complex human systems and illuminating what constitutes complexity-informed leadership and how it can be practiced.