Could Executive Coaching for Trainees Improve the Leadership Potential within General Practice?

Problem

Executive coaching is well established in the industrial and financial sectors, impacting favourably on leadership and productivity, but there is scant evidence and little experience of this in health care. It is argued, such an approach might encourage the leadership needed to meet the ever increasing complex challenges of delivering effective health care efficiently. We set out to explore the potential impact executive coaching could have on trainees in general practice (GP).

Approach

This was a mixed methods study. All GP trainees (n=46) in Northern Ireland completed a questionnaire about knowledge and experience of coaching and leadership ability. Six underwent up to six sessions each of coaching by non-medical professional coaches over a 12 week period and completed a post-coaching questionnaire. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted with the trainees who had been coached. These were audio recorded and subsequently transcribed and analysed for themes.

Findings

Trainees had no experience of formal coaching and knew little about it. Pre-intervention they felt ill-equipped for leadership positions, but were keen to develop themselves. Themes extracted included: General experience of coaching; Leadership identity and areas of leadership development.Trainees had a perception of greater self-efficacy Post-intervention. . Shifts in mind set were identified in four key areas of leadership: courage (delegation, conflict management, appropriate assertiveness, and challenging defensive medical decision-making); passion (experimental attitude, creativity, self-compassion, positivity, stress reduction, reframing ‘failure’, resilience); impact (time management, effectiveness, action planning, pro-activity) and vision (understanding personal values, culture creation). An increased desire for leadership responsibilities was apparent.

Consequences

Coaching creates a safe, challenging and empowering environment, impacting working cultures. This is the first UK study of its kind in general practice. Coaching helps provide leadership ‘language’ and ‘identity’ and challenges the ‘imposter phenomenon’. Coaching provided bespoke, deep, experiential learning, with transferable benefits not otherwise available in the Specialty Training programme. Executive coaching is feasible, relevant and an “eye-opener” for GP trainees. It empowers and facilitates doctors to consider leadership roles. To cope with the increasing complexity and rising demands of health care, and of general practice in particular GPs will need to possess sophisticated leadership skills. Our findings indicate that coaching has the power to develop a greater perspective early on in the careers of young GPs and as such could be a significant factor in the development and flourishing of general practice. Incorporation within existing training schemes should be seriously considered.