The effect of a leadership development program on healthcare leaders

This scholarly project evaluates the effect of a leadership development program (LDP) on healthcare leaders. The impact of leadership competence on organizational success has become an important topic. Leadership development programs equip leaders to perform with increased competence and confidence, thereby improving quality, safety, and overall organizational effectiveness.
The LDP was an educational intervention to increase comprehension of effective transformational leadership strategies to improve the healthcare leader’s knowledge, style, and performance. The setting for the project was an academic health center in western North Carolina. Out of 33 participants, 28 (85%) completed the pre and post Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The MLQ includes 45 Likert-scale items that allow leaders to complete a self-assessment of transformational, transactional and laissez faire leadership characteristics. The participants who completed the pre and post MLQ had significantly higher scores in the transformational leadership principles of idealized attributes, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation, with p-values of less than 0.05 and t-value greater than 1.96. They had significantly lower scores in management by exception, active, and passive or laissez-faire leadership style. The results show that participants perceived that their transformational leadership qualities improved or that they became more transformational
Notwithstanding the limitations (self-reported outcomes that may be over or under-rated, a small sample size (n=28) that may limit generalizability, a lack of gender balance amongst participants), the study contributes to the body of research on leadership development programs and demonstrates that LDPs can have a positive impact on leaders in healthcare organizations.