Leadership behaviours in interprofessional student teamwork

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Education
• Leadership Studies
• Teamwork Dynamics

Background:

• Effective leadership is crucial for patient care and safety, often demonstrated through collective leadership styles.
• Integrating leadership skill training longitudinally throughout a clinician's career is essential.
• Organizational theories offer frameworks for cultivating student leadership during teamwork and evaluating outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore leadership qualities identified by students in their peers during a large-scale interprofessional learning activity.
• To apply the Situational Leadership Theory framework to analyze student-identified leadership behaviors.
• To assess the nature and constructiveness of peer feedback provided by students.

Main Methods:

• 1674 students from 11 health disciplines participated in the "Health Collaboration Challenge" (HCC) in 2018.
• Students worked in small interprofessional teams and provided written peer feedback.
• Feedback data were coded and categorized using Situational Leadership Theory, then quantified.

Main Results:

• The most frequent leadership styles identified were 'delegating' (36%) and 'supporting' (31%).
• A significant portion of comments (43%) were unconstructive, indicating a need for improvement in feedback quality.
• Key areas for self-improvement feedback included 'active team member contribution' (37%) and 'communication' (28%).

Conclusions:

• Students demonstrated some leadership behaviors but require further development through targeted training.
• Leadership skills should be explicitly taught and integrated into interprofessional education curricula for health professionals.
• Further research is needed on student understanding and contribution to leadership within interprofessional teams.