Developmental readiness and leadership development in medicine

Abstract

PurposeLeadership is a key competency for physicians. Based on the premise that not everyone benefits equally from leadership development programmes, the leader developmental readiness (LDR; ability and motivation to develop) construct has been proposed to account for the differences. The purpose of this project was to explore the relationship between LDR, leadership experience, leader behaviours and leader efficacy in medical learners.MethodSurvey data from 46 medical learners were collected in 2015–2016. Separate one-way analysis of variances, with between-group factors of leadership experience (<12 months, >12 months, 0 month), were carried out on LDR constructs of ability and motivation using five validated measures: motivation to lead, goal orientation, developmental efficacy, self-awareness and metacognitive ability. Spearman’s rank-order correlations were used to examine the relationship between LDR and experience with leader efficacy and leadership behaviours (transformational and transactional). Statistical significance was determined at p<0.05. Bonferroni corrections were applied for any multiple comparisons.ResultsSignificant main effects were observed for both ability and motivation to develop, showing lower scores on these variables for individuals with less leadership experience. Both experience and LDR constructs (motivation and ability) were shown to be significantly positively associated with transformational leadership behaviour (and not transactional leadership behaviour). The LDR constructs, but not leadership experience, were significantly positively associated with leader efficacy.ConclusionsThe positive correlation between LDR, experience, and transformational leadership behaviours and between LDR and leader efficacy is of value in leadership development. Understanding the developmental readiness of learners and how this affects leadership development is paramount to better inform personal leadership development and structure leadership development programmes for medical learners and physicians.