Leadership knowledge and behaviours: outcomes of a full-day leadership workshop focusing on personal growth in foundation doctors.

Abstract

Background: Effective clinical leadership is required at every level, including in Foundation doctors. Most leadership programmes neglect self-awareness and personal growth aspects of leadership training. We modified the Basildon Leadership Hub to focus on these aspects and evaluated the new programme.

Methods: Large group sessions were led by speakers with varied leadership roles, interspersed by breakout sessions incorporating experiential and reflective learning. Attendees answered anonymous surveys before, immediately after, and 2 months after the workshop, with 5-point Likert-scale responses (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree) designed around reaction, knowledge and behaviour levels of evaluation. We assessed differences in median responses using the Mann-Whitney U test with Bonferroni-Holm correction.

Results: The full-day workshop was attended by 27 trainees, 93% of whom considered it enjoyable and relevant. Attendees agreed more strongly to the statements 'I am a leader' and 'I know how I can demonstrate and develop my own leadership knowledge, skills and behaviours' in postcourse versus precourse surveys (p<0.001). The follow-up survey had a poor response rate of 26% with non-significant differences.

Conclusion: A full-day leadership workshop for Foundation doctors focusing on personal growth resulted in improvement in self-assessed precourse and postcourse knowledge and attitudes; however, poor follow-up response rate limited demonstration of sustained outcomes or changes in behaviour.