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Abstract
Objectives & Background High quality leadership is associated with improved outcomes for patients and increased staff satisfaction. A combined team of clinicians from UHCW and HEFT felt that during this time of particular pressure, shop floor leadership qualities, as stated by other staff, would be of use to guide behaviours.
Aims We aimed to identify the qualities staff valued in shop floor medical leadership. We also aimed to identify behaviours that were felt to be unhelpful as well as identifying Senior tier doctors (Consultant/Middle Grade) who were most felt to run a good floor.
Methods We conducted a qualitative survey across 3 departments in the West Midlands over one month in early 2015.
We used an anonymous questionnaire which first collected demographics then responses to the following questions
1) What characteristics do you associate with effective shop floor leadership?
2) What characteristics do you associate with ineffective shop floor leadership
3) Are any staff particularly good? Please tell us why.
The responses were assessed to spot themes and agreed upon by the authors. Answers were codified by a group of 4 of the authors with disputes settled by discussion.
Results A total of 101 responses were received with a broad spectrum of staff answering. All codified results were assessed and it was deemed the best way to represent the data was in the form of word clouds. Each word present in the cloud has a larger presence in relation to the frequency of it being mentioned as a response. Interestingly the attributes most highly regarded by staff were that the senior shop floor doctor was approachable and supportive. With less of a need for good communication skills or their enthusiasm at work. This would imply that staff see the senior doctor as being somebody to be able to turn to in need without fear of rebuke. This is reinforced by a high number of the negative attributes being aspects of interpersonal interactions and areas that would represent a barrier to being a supportive and approachable member of staff. The ability to aid decision making when turned to for advice is clearly relied upon as a key with both a lack of availability and then being unable to make decisions seen as negatives. Communication is not seen as positive attribute to be good at as much as it is seen to be a negative if its done poorly.
- emergency departments