Building a ramp into leadership: Exploring resident doctors’ experiences of a workplace embedded leadership intervention

Background Leadership development is a recognised priority for the postgraduate medical curricula in the UK. However, unlike technical clinical skills, leadership skills are challenging to define, impart and assess because they are highly contextual and relational. While there have been a range of approaches to leadership development, these have had mixed success. This paper explores a new approach to leadership development for resident doctors, the GPC Hub. This approach follows an apprenticeship model, enabling junior doctors to take on real leadership in a safe and low stakes setting. Methods This study utilises a phenomenographic approach which focuses on the lived experience of resident doctors who participated in the GPC Hub. The study focuses on how participants responded to their experience with the GPC Hub, how they made meaning of their experience, what they learned how they responded to both the gains and challenges of their involvement. The study is based on in depth interviews with 10 participants. Analysis was thematic and based on a process of initial inductive code generation, theme identification, review and revision, definition, and finalisation. Results The study found that participants gained a great deal from involvement in the GPC Hub. It found that involvement offered them opportunities for collaboration, access, insight and legitimised involvement in real leadership and a scaffolded approach to more senior roles. They were able to contribute in authentic and meaningful ways. Participants developed skills in communication, organisation, collaboration and diplomacy. Yet this involvement was not without challenges, primarily the difficulty in balancing their clinical skill development and personal lives with the time required. Conclusions The study concludes that the GPC Hub offers an approach to leadership development that can be utilised across a range of settings. Through an apprenticeship approach it provided legitimated access to engagement with real leadership practice through observation of and enactment of organisational structures and relationships and the challenges of negotiation, collaboration, engagement and delivery.