Bridging worldviews: Toward a common model of leadership across the health professions

Abstract

Background: As the pace of health sector transformation accelerates, the importance of leadership continues to grow across all health professions. Advances in a variety of disciplines can inform effective leadership development. However, at present, most health sector leadership competency models do not incorporate these advances and are instead developed using consensus-based methods within specific professions. An interprofessional approach to leadership competencies could help incorporate these advances and support better interdisciplinary leadership development.

Purpose: This study was pursued to revise and revalidate a widely used health sector leadership competency model and assess its potential for providing greater interoperability across the professions.

Methodology/approach: Using the National Center for Healthcare Leadership's interprofessional competency model Version 2.1 as the starting point, we developed a revised and revalidated model in four phases: (a) we completed a future scan using methods described in Garman et al. [Garman, A. N., Johnson, T. J., & Royer, T. (2011). The future of healthcare: Global trends worth watching. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.]; (b) we collected behavioral event interview data from pairs of leaders representing different organizational and performance levels, using methods developed by Boyatzis [Boyatzis, R. E. (1982). The competent manager: A model for effective performance. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.]; (c) we conducted a validity study via electronic survey of 145 working managers and calculated content validity ratios using methods described by Lawshe [Lawshe, C. H. (1975). A quantitative approach to content validity. Personnel Psychology, 38(4), 563-575.]; and (d) we used natural language processing to assess the extent to which existing leadership models in the health professions will crosswalk to the new model.

Findings: All competencies in the revised model successfully met criteria for validity. The revised model also successfully crosswalked against, on average, 85% of the competencies in the other five health professions leadership models.

Practice implications: Based on the results of this research, we conclude the revised model can provide a "common language" framework in support of interdisciplinary leadership development. The availability of such a model may also assist human resource and development executives in better aligning learning resources with organizational goals.

Figure 1

Transdisciplinary framework for leadership development in the health sector