Transforming leaders to agents of change: evaluating a healthcare leadership training programme

Abstract

Background/Aims The success of an organisation depends largely on the performance of teams, which rely on their leaders to have the required capabilities for team management. To successfully integrate care across multiple organisations and services, care partnerships must ensure that their middle-level managers have the training required to deliver change and achieve the partnership's goals. This study aimed to evaluate a leadership training programme involving managers in the middle levels of a health and social care service in the UK. Methods Questionnaires were distributed to the 23 managers who participated in the training before the programme began and after each training session. Participants scored their agreement with statements about the specific sessions on a 5-point Likert scale and had the option of giving qualitative written feedback. Results were discussed in subsequent sessions. Two focus groups were held with a total of 15 participants to explore their experiences of the training programme and any barriers to applying their training to practice. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, while transcripts from the focus groups were analysed using content analysis. Results All 23 participants agreed that the training was relevant to their role and that it was useful or highly useful for empowering them to apply their knowledge for change management in their roles. However, participants were less sure about the impact of the training on their understanding or communication skills, and several items lacked responses. Focus group participants reported that the training programme increased their confidence to implement change and apply their learning to practice. Barriers to implementing changes to practice included lack of support from senior leaders and a need for more topics and wider inclusion of stakeholders in the training programme. Conclusions Training can promote transformational leadership in health and social care, but this requires cohesive and intentional collaborative working among all stakeholders, including active involvement of senior leadership and the provision of an enabling environment for middle managers to put their learning into practice.