The European health industry is operating in an environment of accelerating innovation, tightening regulatory expectations and intensifying competition for talent. While technical expertise remains essential, organisations increasingly depend on leadership and transversal competences across mid-level, emerging and senior managers to translate strategy into execution, align multidisciplinary teams and sustain performance under pressure.
Sector evidence reinforces that the limiting factor is often not specialist knowledge, but the ability to lead people, communicate across functions and drive change consistently. BRIGHTskills findings reflect the same pattern: the most in-demand training areas are dominated by leadership, communication, conflict resolution, time management and adaptability, indicating that domain expertise alone is no longer sufficient without strong transversal capability in dynamic environments.
Health sector analyses emphasise that leadership capability is a core determinant of organisational effectiveness, scale-up readiness and operational performance — particularly in complex, regulated and stakeholder-dense settings where coordination and decisionmaking must be consistent across functions.
BRIGHTskills research highlights significant demand for transversal skills that enable delivery in increasingly digital, data-driven and interdisciplinary workplaces. Respondents stress the growing importance of adaptability, communication, time management and change readiness, alongside the ability to manage complexity, work across functions and lead effectively through uncertainty.
These signals point to a common workforce planning challenge: organisations need clarity on which transversal competences should be embedded at different leadership levels, and how these competences support transformation priorities across business units and teams.
To validate and identify the leadership and transversal competences required to successfully drive the digital, regulatory and green transformation in Europe's health industries.
The objective of the 45-minute online facilitated national level focus group is to:
Participants will gain insight into shared sector-wide challenges in defining and strengthening leadership and transversal competences across mid-level, emerging and senior roles in SMEs and large corporations.
By contributing practical experience, employers and managers will directly shape the prioritisation of leadership, communication, change-management and cross-functional collaboration skills required to deliver the digital, regulatory and green transformation.
The resulting leadership model and skills roadmap will provide a structured basis for aligning workforce planning and training provision with real operational needs, including the distinct constraints faced by SMEs and large organisations.
