Abstract
Objective
To evaluate the impact of organizational leadership on the professional satisfaction
and burnout of individual physicians working for a large health care organization.
Participants and Methods
We surveyed physicians and scientists working for a large health care organization
in October 2013. Validated tools were used to assess burnout. Physicians also rated
the leadership qualities of their immediate supervisor in 12 specific dimensions on
a 5-point Likert scale. All supervisors were themselves physicians/scientists. A composite
leadership score was calculated by summing scores for the 12 individual items (range,
12-60; higher scores indicate more effective leadership).
Results
Of the 3896 physicians surveyed, 2813 (72.2%) responded. Supervisor scores in each
of the 12 leadership dimensions and composite leadership score strongly correlated
with the burnout and satisfaction scores of individual physicians (all P<.001). On multivariate analysis adjusting for age, sex, duration of employment at
Mayo Clinic, and specialty, each 1-point increase in composite leadership score was
associated with a 3.3% decrease in the likelihood of burnout (P<.001) and a 9.0% increase in the likelihood of satisfaction (P<.001) of the physicians supervised. The mean composite leadership rating of each
division/department chair (n=128) also correlated with the prevalence of burnout (correlation=–0.330;
r2=0.11; P<.001) and satisfaction (correlation=0.684; r2=0.47; P<.001) at the division/department level.
Conclusion
The leadership qualities of physician supervisors appear to impact the well-being
and satisfaction of individual physicians working in health care organizations. These
findings have important implications for the selection and training of physician leaders
and provide new insights into organizational factors that affect physician well-being.
Abbreviations and Acronyms:
MBI (Maslach Burnout Inventory), NA (do not know/not applicable)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 18, 2015
Footnotes
For editorial comment, See page 425
Grant Support: Funding for this study was provided by the Mayo Clinic Office of Organization and Leadership Development and the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-being.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Access this article on ScienceDirectLinked Article
- Teachable Action for Leaders Committed to Improving Physician Work Life: Continuing EducationMayo Clinic ProceedingsVol. 90Issue 10
- PreviewWe read with great interest the article by Shanafelt et al1 on the impact of organizational leadership on physician burnout and satisfaction published in the April 2015 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. In their article, the authors identified several specific leadership qualities of physician supervisors as predictors of physician burnout and career satisfaction, including encouraging physicians to develop their talents and skills. We recently conducted a survey of the approximately 1850 clinically active academic physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital focused on physician burnout, career satisfaction, and administrative burden (response rate, 96% [1774]).
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