Delivering change in precision and patient-centred personalised health: Look, listen, learn, lead

Personalised medicine and precision healthcare are key components of an evolving agenda to improve the health and wellbeing of our citizens, at local, national and global levels. Developing and delivering this patient-centred agenda requires the input of multiple stakeholders, many of whom will have distinct and contrasting disciplinary skills and represent diverse communities and interests. Harnessing this talent to maximise the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach can be challenging, particularly as stakeholders will, in general, be more comfortable within their own area of expertise and may not have had significant experience of multi- or inter- disciplinary interaction. A robust, effective leadership strategy with a degree of flexibility is required to ensure the successful delivery of interdisciplinary activities and ventures, from the approach that is required to define a project vision, and the ability to nurture collaborative interactions that map to that vision; to the absolute importance of capturing diverse views and experiences, and to ensure that all stakeholders contribute to, and feel a part of, the delivery of the vision. Finally, persuasive leadership skills (which may also require a degree of persistence) are needed to ensure that the desired final outputs are "fit for purpose" and become embedded within an evolving health ecosystem that promotes wellbeing. Three projects which emphasise the crucial role of complimentary but at times distinct modes of leadership to deliver workable and effective solutions that required multi-disciplinary interaction will be explored in detail. In the first leadership vignette, the leadership skills and style involved in the development of an equal partnership between health care professionals and patients and their advocates that resulted in a European charter that addresses cancer inequalities for cancer patients across Europe will be examined. The 2^nd leadership vignette highlights a somewhat different leadership approach that facilitated a multi-stakeholder cooperative to fashion the creation and execution of a blueprint for enhancing the sharing of genomic and health-related data for patient benefit at a global level. In the 3^rd leadership vignette, a more policy-focused collaborative leadership strategy was employed to underpin the development of a framework for embedding personalised and precision medicine research in health care systems across Europe and beyond.