Leadership during airway management in the intensive care unit: A video-reflexive ethnography study.

Effective leadership is crucial to team performance within the intensive care unit. This novel study aimed to explore how staff members from an intensive care unit conceptualize leadership and what facilitators and barriers to leadership exist within a simulated workplace. It also aimed to identify factors that intersect with their perceptions of leadership. This study was underpinned by interpretivism, and video-reflexive ethnography was chosen as the methodology for the study. The use of both video recording (to capture the complex interactions occurring in the ICU) and team reflexivity allowed repeated analysis of those interactions by the research team. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants from an ICU in a large tertiary and private hospital in Australia. Simulation groups were designed to replicate the typical clinical teams involved in airway management within the intensive care unit. Twenty staff participated in the four simulation activities (five staff per simulation group). Each group simulated the intubations of three patients with hypoxia and respiratory distress due to severe COVID-19. All 20 participants who completed the study simulations were invited to attend video-reflexivity sessions with their respective group. Twelve of the 20 participants (60%) from the simulations took part in the reflexive sessions. Video-reflexivity sessions (142 min) were transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were then imported into NVivo software for analysis. The five stages of framework analysis were used to conduct thematic analysis of the video-reflexivity focus group sessions, including the development of a coding framework. All transcripts were coded in NVivo. NVivo queries were conducted to explore patterns in the coding. The following key themes regarding participants' conceptualizations of leadership within the intensive care were identified: (1) leadership is both a group/shared process and individualistic/hierarchical; (2) leadership is communication; and (3) gender is a key leadership dimension. Key facilitators identified were: (1) role allocation; (2) trust, respect and staff familiarity; and (3) the use of checklists. Key barriers identified were: (1) noise and (2) personal protective equipment. The impact of socio-materiality on leadership within the intensive care unit is also identified.

Leadership in intensive care: A review.

An integrative review of the literature specific to leadership within the intensive care unit was planned to guide future research. Four databases were searched. Study selection was based on predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria and a quality check was done. Data extraction and synthesis involved developing a preliminary thematic coding framework based on a sample of papers. The coding framework and all selected papers were entered into NVivo software. All papers were then coded to the previously identified themes. Themes were summarised and presented with illustrative quotes highlighting key findings. In total, 1102 relevant quotations were coded across the 28 included papers. Four themes pertaining to leadership were described and analysed: (a) leadership dimensions and discourses; (b) leadership experiences; (c) facilitators and/or barriers to leadership; and (d) leadership outcomes. The literature was found to focus on leader behaviours, as well as the leader dimensions of role allocation, clinical and communication skills and traditional hierarchies. Positive behaviours mentioned included good decision-making, staying calm under pressure and being approachable. Leadership experiences (and outcomes) are typically reported to be positive. Personal individual factors seem the biggest enablers and barriers to leadership within the intensive care unit. Training is considered to be a facilitator of leadership within the intensive care unit. This study highlights the current literature on leadership in intensive care medicine and provides a basis for future research on interventions to improve leadership in the intensive care unit.

Preparing for leadership in General Practice: a qualitative exploration of how GP trainees learn about leadership.

The recent rise to prominence of healthcare leadership worldwide has prompted those involved in medical education to consider how to facilitate learning to lead effectively. Research has focused on formal curriculum activities. Curricular theory suggests that trainee doctors may also learn through the informal curriculum but there is a lack of medical education literature on this. We aimed to explore how GP trainees learn about leadership in their GP training practices. Epistemologically grounded in social constructionism, this research involved 15 semi-structured interviews with GP trainees about to complete their training. Interviews were conducted using an online video conferencing method, audio-taped, transcribed and analysed using thematic framework analysis. We identified three learning processes contributing to leadership development; evaluating leadership, formulating views on leadership and constructing a personal leadership identity. Other factors operating within the informal curriculum included leadership terminology, and the quality of relationships and networks. Paradoxically, a role model's fallibility could positively influence leadership learning. Based on our findings, we present a model for the informal leadership learning process. This may enhance the facilitation of leadership learning by trainers and the wider clinical team, and positively influence the delivery and content of formal leadership courses.

Leadership and followership in the healthcare workplace: exploring medical trainees' experiences through narrative inquiry.

OBJECTIVES: To explore medical trainees' experiences of leadership and followership in the interprofessional healthcare workplace. DESIGN: A qualitative approach using narrative interviewing techniques in 11 group and 19 individual interviews with UK medical trainees. SETTING: Multisite study across four UK health boards. PARTICIPANTS: Through maximum variation sampling, 65 medical trainees were recruited from a range of specialties and at various stages of training. Participants shared stories about their experiences of leadership and followership in the healthcare workplace. METHODS: Data were analysed using thematic and narrative analysis. RESULTS: We identified 171 personal incident narratives about leadership and followership. Participants most often narrated experiences from the position of follower. Their narratives illustrated many factors that facilitate or inhibit developing leadership identities; that traditional medical and interprofessional hierarchies persist within the healthcare workplace; and that wider healthcare systems can act as barriers to distributed leadership practices. CONCLUSIONS: This paper provides new understandings of the multiple ways in which leadership and followership is experienced in the healthcare workplace and sets out recommendations for future leadership educational practices and research.

Dimensions, discourses and differences: trainees conceptualising health care leadership and followership.

CONTEXT: As doctors in all specialties are expected to undertake leadership within health care organisations, leadership development has become an inherent part of medical education. Whereas the leadership literature within medical education remains mostly focused on individual, hierarchical leadership, contemporary theory posits leadership as a group process, which should be distributed across all levels of health care organisation. This gap between theory and practice indicates that there is a need to understand what leadership and followership mean to medical trainees working in today's interprofessional health care workplace. METHODS: Epistemologically grounded in social constructionism, this research involved 19 individual and 11 group interviews with 65 UK medical trainees across all stages of training and a range of specialties. Semi-structured interviewing techniques were employed to capture medical trainees' conceptualisations of leadership and followership. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic framework analysis to identify leadership and followership dimensions which were subsequently mapped onto leadership discourses found in the literature. RESULTS: Although diversity existed in terms of medical trainees' understandings of leadership and followership, unsophisticated conceptualisations focusing on individual behaviours, hierarchy and personality were commonplace in trainees' understandings. This indicated the dominance of an individualist discourse. Patterns in understandings across all stages of training and specialties, and whether definitions were solicited or unsolicited, illustrated that context heavily influenced trainees' conceptualisations of leadership and followership. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that UK trainees typically hold traditional understandings of leadership and followership, which are clearly influenced by the organisational structures in which they work. Although education may change these understandings to some extent, changes in leadership practices to reflect contemporary theory are unlikely to be sustained if leadership experiences in the workplace continue to be based on individualist models.