Book excerpt: Is leadership just a fashion that is blowing through the healthcare sector and will blow out again? Is it just new fancy language to describe what has always happened in hospitals, surgeries, and schools across the land? The authors think not, and there are many reasons why leadership - across the organization and across healthcare networks - needs to be taken seriously. Clear and convincing with practical applications, Leadership for Healthcare includes a systematic literature review of the academic and policy literature of healthcare leadership in the UK in the last 10 years. The book provides an evidence-based framework which synthesizes the literature from health services management and business. It draws out lessons for policy, practice, and future research in the area of leadership in healthcare, and it provides a clear 'road map' of the terrain of leadership which will help to avoid some of the pitfalls, fallacies, and fantasies about leadership.