August 2017
Article
Annals of Thoracic Surgery

Effective Leadership of Surgical Teams: A Mixed Methods Study of Surgeon Behaviors and Functions

By: J. Stone, E. Aveling, M. Frean, M. Shields, C. Wright, F. Gino, T. Sundt and S.J. Singer

Format:Print

Abstract

The importance of effective team leadership for achieving surgical excellence is widely accepted, but we understand less about the behaviors that achieve this goal. We studied cardiac surgical teams to identify leadership behaviors that best support surgical teamwork. We observed, surveyed, and interviewed cardiac surgical teams, including 7 surgeons and 116 team members, from September 2013 to April 2015. We documented 1,926 surgeon-team member interactions during 22 cases, coded them by behavior type and valence, and characterized them by leadership function to create a novel framework of surgical leadership derived from direct observation. We surveyed non-surgeon team members about their perceptions of individual surgeons’ leadership effectiveness and correlated survey measures with individual surgeon profiles created by calculating percentage of behavior types, leader functions, and valence. We identified seven surgeon-leadership functions and related behaviors that impact perceptions of leadership. These observations suggest actionable opportunities to improve team leadership behavior.

Keywords

Groups and Teams; Leadership; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

Citation

Stone, J., E. Aveling, M. Frean, M. Shields, C. Wright, F. Gino, T. Sundt, and S.J. Singer. "Effective Leadership of Surgical Teams: A Mixed Methods Study of Surgeon Behaviors and Functions." Annals of Thoracic Surgery 104, no. 2 (August 2017): 530–537.