Personality Predicts the Efficacy of a Physician Leadership Development Program

It is imperative for health care organizations to foster leadership skills in their workforce. Leadership development programs offer a potential mechanism to achieve this goal. These development programs are likely not equally effective for all participants. This study evaluates the efficacy of one such program and determines personality predictors of its efficacy. Before and after a 12-month leadership development program, 28 physicians from various disciplines completed self-reported measures of leadership knowledge across 3 domains. At baseline, participants also provided personality data across the Big-5 factors of personality as well as 2 narrow facets (learning-goal orientation and preference for collaboration). Results suggest that leadership development programs can increase knowledge across leadership domains. Extraversion and conscientiousness predict changes in knowledge. Learning-goal-orientation and preference for collaboration personality facets provide incremental predictive power. Leadership development programs can improve self-rated knowledge across a range of leadership domains and is differentially effective for people based on their personalities.