| This paper derives from a grounded theory study of how Medical Directors working within the UK National Health Service manage the moral quandaries that they encounter as leaders of health care organizations. The reason health care organizations exist is to provide better care for individuals through providing shared resources for groups of people. This creates a paradox at the heart of health care organization, because serving the interests of groups sometimes runs counter to serving the needs of individuals. The paradox presents ethical dilemmas at every level of the organization, from the boardroom to the bedside. Medical Directors experience these organizational ethical dilemmas most acutely by virtue of their position in the organization. As doctors, their professional ethic obliges them to put the interests of individual patients first. As executive directors, their role is to help secure the delivery of services that meet the needs of the whole patient population. What should they do when the interests of groups of patients, and of individual patients, appear to conflict? The first task of an ethical healthcare organization is to secure the trust of patients, and two examples of medical ethical leadership are discussed against this background. These examples suggest that conflict between individual and population needs is integral to health care organization, so dilemmas addressed at one level of the organization inevitably re-emerge in altered form at other levels. Finally, analysis of the ethical activity that Medical Directors have described affords insight into the interpersonal components of ethical skill and knowledge.
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