A Developmental Approach to Mid-Career Faculty Leadership Training at Two Academic Medical Centers

Leadership training helps position faculty to guide various aspects of health care and health professions education at academic medical centers. With the increasing complexity of these responsibilities, it is essential that academic medical centers provide leadership skill-development opportunities to faculty. This work describes the structure of two internal mid-career faculty leadership development programs that were created to cultivate future institutional leaders from within the organization. These year-long programs were each established in 2017 and have been implemented annually. Both programs use a developmental approach with project-based, experiential learning so that leadership skills are applied immediately and meaningfully. Internal leadership programs support context-specific skills, while creating a community of leaders and a culture of leadership across the institution. Multidisciplinary participants bring diverse perspectives, and intra-institutional interactions foster collaborations. Internal, longitudinal training also supports comprehensive development more than is typically possible with short-term, external leadership programs. Other organizations can use these program descriptions and insights to develop similar internal, mid-career leadership training opportunities. While the broader academic medicine community benefits from faculty advancement whether training is within the institution or elsewhere, internal leadership training promotes context-specific development at individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels.