RESUMEN
One of the main ways in which health leaders at all levels can be developed on a daily basis has been neglected by clinical leadership research, and by the research community generally, relating to the leader consciously using evidence-based coaching skills to positively impact their direct reports, team members, peers, organisations and the wider system in the context of their vocational role, as 'Leader-as-Coach'.This paper summarises the research on the role of 'Leader-as-Coach', and translates the learning from this into the practice of clinical leadership development.Line managers are increasingly expected to use a coaching approach and are in an ideal position to do so. While there are many similarities with professional external coaching, the behaviours of the 'Leader-as-Coach' are also not identical and multiple ethical issues can arise.There is no consistent academic definition to describe the behaviours of coaching in the context of a leader's vocational role, nor yet specific competencies for training or supervision purposes.The outcomes are summarised from the known literature in this field. Individual and system challenges are then discussed and conclusions are drawn about what this research means in practice for clinical leaders and their systems.
RESUMEN
INTRODUCTION: Senior doctors, medical and public health leaders frequently experience poor levels of mental well-being. The aim was to investigate whether psychologically informed leadership coaching impacted on the mental well-being of 80 UK-based senior doctors, medical and public health leaders. METHODS: A pre-post study was undertaken during 2018-2022 of 80 UK senior doctors, medical and public health leaders. Before and after measures of mental well-being were measured using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale. The age range was 30-63 years (mean 44.5, mode and median, 45.0). Thirty-seven participants were male (46.3%). The proportion of non-white ethnicity was 21.3%.Participants undertook an average of 8.7 hours of bespoke 1:1 psychologically informed leadership coaching. RESULTS: The mean well-being score before the intervention was 21.4 (SD=3.28). The mean well-being score after the intervention increased to 24.5 (SD=3.38). A paired samples t-test found that the increase in metric well-being scores after the intervention was statistically significant (t=-9.52, p<0.001; Cohen's d=3.14).The mean improvement was+17.4% (median 115.8%, mode 100, range -17.7% to+202.4%). This was observed particularly in two subdomains. CONCLUSION: Psychologically informed leadership coaching may be an effective way to improve mental well-being outcomes in senior doctors, medical and public heath leaders. The contribution of psychologically informed coaching is currently limited in medical leadership development research.
