Leadership Elements in Veterans Affairs All Employee Survey

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Organizational Leadership
• Veterans Affairs

Background:

• Veterans Affairs (VA) case managers coordinate care within complex healthcare systems.
• Government reports highlight veteran dissatisfaction with care coordination.
• Existing literature suggests VA case managers exhibit leadership, but specific elements remain undefined.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate leadership elements among VA case managers using the Leader-Follower Framework (LF2).
• To identify which LF2 leadership elements are addressed in the VA All Employee Survey (AES).
• To determine if any leadership elements fall outside the LF2 framework.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the conceptual Leader-Follower Framework (LF2).
• Assessed questions from the annual VA All Employee Survey (AES).
• Analyzed survey data for representation of LF2 leadership elements.

Main Results:

• All eight LF2 leadership elements (Character, Competence, Context, Communication, Personal, Interpersonal, Team, Organizational) were represented in the AES questions.
• No leadership elements outside the LF2 framework were identified.
• Leadership elements were unevenly represented; communication and personal elements were frequent, while context and team elements were underrepresented.

Conclusions:

• The LF2 framework is suitable for evaluating VA employee responses regarding leadership.
• The LF2 can inform the development of future case management surveys.
• Uneven representation of leadership elements in the AES suggests areas for improvement in survey design and case manager support.