Abstract
BackgroundCollective or shared leadership approaches have been associated with team performance outcomes in several sectors. Based on this evidence, there have been calls for more inclusive approaches to leadership in healthcare settings, but guidance on how to achieve collective leadership is lacking. This study synthesised knowledge of interventions to introduce collectivistic leadership in healthcare settings.MethodsThe databases of PubMed, PsychInfo, ABI Inform, Cochrane and CINAHL and three grey literature databases were searched. Studies from any country were included if they reported on the development and evaluation and/or implementation of training/interventions to develop collectivistic leadership and reported individual and/or team-level outcomes. Results were synthesised using a narrative approach.ResultsThe searches yielded 4448 records of which 21 met the eligibility criteria and were reviewed. Studies used a variety of interventions; eleven employed a team training approach, four described co-leadership, three explored service improvement, two detailed co-design approaches and one described an individual team development intervention. Most demonstrated moderate to good success in enabling collectivistic leadership, with benefits reported in staff engagement, satisfaction, and team performance.ConclusionsWhilst collectivistic leadership interventions have demonstrated positive outcomes, there is a need for more rigor and consistency in the evaluation of interventions aimed at developing collectivistic leadership approaches in health settings.
Highlights
Collective or shared leadership approaches have been associated with team performance outcomes in several sectors
The field is still developing and as a result, the literature is sparse and disparate; we do not yet know how we can effectively develop collectivistic leadership approaches [1]. Because such approaches are relatively novel in healthcare settings there is a lack of understanding on how best to achieve collective ways of working in this context. To address this gap and to inform future research in this area, this paper aims to synthesise scientific knowledge of evaluated interventions that sought to introduce collectivistic leadership in healthcare settings
The majority of included studies were conducted in the USA [37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46] and the United Kingdom (UK) [47,48,49,50] with studies from Australia [51, 52], Sweden [53, 54], Canada [55, 56], and Germany [57] included
Summary
Collective or shared leadership approaches have been associated with team performance outcomes in several sectors. Leadership has been considered as an individual attribute, and contested as either trait-like or a state-like quality, or both [3, 4] This body of research has focused on the single leader, with the Collective approaches to leadership are evident where the leadership roles and responsibilities are shared, distributed or rotated amongst team members. The various terms represents distinct theoretical approaches, even with multiple proposed frameworks within each approach [13], it is important to note that often the terms have been used interchangeably, and the relative usage of terms has varied over time [13] These forms of leadership defy the traditional, hierarchical, single leader view of leadership and represent a shift towards these more collectivistic approaches
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