Management training of physician executives, their leadership style, and care management performance: an empirical...

To examine associations between management training of physician executives and their leadership styles, as well as effectiveness in achieving disease management goals.

Cross-sectional national survey.

Executive directors of community health centers (269 respondents; response rate = 40.9%) were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the medical director's leadership, and for quantitative information on the center's achievement of clinical (mostly disease management) goals. The dependent variables were the medical director's scores (as perceived by the executive director) on transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership, effectiveness, satisfaction with the leader, and subordinate extra effort, using an adapted Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (43 items; 5-point Likert scale). The independent variable was the medical director's management training status.

Compared with medical directors with < 30 days of inservice training, medical directors with an MHA, MPH, or MBA, or > or =30 days of in-service training, had 0.32, 0.35, 0.30, 0.36, and 0.37 higher scores on transformational leadership, transactional leadership, rated effectiveness, satisfaction, and subordinate extra effort, respectively, and 0.31 lower score on laissez-faire leadership (all P < .001). Medical directors without management degrees but with > or =30 days of in-service training had 0.34, 0.36, 0.50, and 0.47 higher scores on transformational leadership, transactional leadership, rated effectiveness, and satisfaction with the leader (all P < .02). Our data previously had demonstrated that medical directors' transformational leadership significantly influences achievement of disease management goals.

Training may enable physician executives to develop leadership styles that are effective in influencing clinical providers' adoption of disease management guidelines under managed care.