Leadership Research Summary:
• Workforce and public health development are central to the future of public health. However, public health has been slow to translate and apply leadership models from other professions and to incorporate local perspectives in understanding public health leadership.
• This study utilized the full-range leadership model in order to examine public health leadership. Specifically, it sought to measure leadership styles among local health department directors and to understand the context of leadership in local health departments.
• Leadership styles among local health department directors (n = 13) were examined using survey methodology. Quantitative analysis methods included descriptive statistics, boxplots, and Pearson bivariate correlations using SPSS v18.0.
• Findings of the study determined that self-reported leadership styles were highly correlated to leadership outcomes at the organizational level. However, they were not related to county health rankings. Results suggest the preeminence of leader behaviors and providing individual consideration to staff as compared to idealized attributes of leaders, intellectual stimulation, or inspirational motivation.
• Researchers assert that holistic leadership assessment instruments such as the multifactor leadership questionnaire can be useful in assessing public health leaders’ approaches and outcomes. Comprehensive, 360-degree reviews may be especially helpful. Further research is needed to examine the effectiveness of public health leadership development models, as well as the extent that public health leadership impacts public health outcomes.
Leadership Research Findings:
• While fuller implications of both quantitative and qualitative phases of this study will be discussed in the adjoining companion paper, this quantitative portion of the study has important implications for public health practitioners. The first of these is the potential for public health leaders, including local health department directors and local boards of health, as well as public health educators, to adopt well-grounded and more holistic instrumentation such as the MLQ in their assessment of leadership styles and abilities. Such tools provide and, if used generatively, help develop greater self-awareness related to leadership styles and behaviors.
• Many leadership style and personality instruments have been developed, including but certainly not limited to the MLQ instrument used in this study. These instruments are available to measure a range of skills from basic management to levels of emotional intelligence. Developing a detailed leadership assessment for public health practitioners may be useful if based on empirically validated instruments, including a self-generating interpretive report which could be made readily available to interested health departments or individuals. These tools may be especially useful when orienting new supervisors or as a part of accredited higher education programs.
• Assessments such as the MLQ may be helpful to state health officials and for local boards of health that may be involved in the selection and development of new local public health directors. Many members of local health boards are not trained in public health and may be appointed to fill codified positions on the local board; yet, they are tasked with hiring and supervising local directors, which may have a significant positive or negative impact on the public health agency.
• Boards of health should not only account for the health needs of their communities but should also consider carefully the qualities and aspects of leaders they desire in their health director. While basic comprehension of public health services and systems may be fundamental as a qualification, if board members want a director to merely manage the books and tend to the basic tasks of clinical and environment public health, or if the health department may not have a fiscal or political environment conducive to innovation and change, they should look for a more transactional leader.
• If, however, the board is interested in a director who will challenge the status quo by finding creative and innovative ways to improve population health, they should focus their candidate search on more transformational leaders. Providing board members with simple measurement tools to identify these leadership styles should be helpful in this process.