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Learn more about our guest: Victoria Garcia Wilburn, D.H.Sc., OTR, CLT
The world desperately needs OT leaders.
It needs leaders that can think holistically. It needs leaders that understand both individual level change and systems level change. It needs storytellers, collaborators, and compassionate thinkers.
And, these are the qualities of an occupational therapy professional.
Today, we’ll explore a paper on best practices in OT leadership curriculum development. This will help us understand the practical steps involved in leadership development. Both as an individual, and for preparing our profession to be one of leaders.
After we review the article, we are thrilled to welcome to the podcast, Dr. Victoria Wilburn, State Representative for Indiana House District 32. Her and I will discuss the hard-won lessons she has learned about leadership. And, the advice she has for OTs to step into leadership, in whatever role they occupy.
Agenda
Intro and breakdown of journal article
- 00:00:00 Intro
- 00:02:47 Why leadership is important
- 00:03:25 Leadership development in higher education
- 00:03:53 Intent of this paper
- 00:04:22 Leadership development best practices in the literature
- 00:05:31 Case study of a leadership curriculum in an OT program
Discussion on practical implications for OTs
- 00:09:57 Intro to Victoria Garcia Wilburn
- 00:12:27 How Victoria went from practicing OT to policy advocate
- 00:22:25 Article impressions
- 00:24:45 How do you define leadership for yourself?
- 00:29:46 How has your OT background informed your advocacy priorities?
- 00:33:20 Stories of how OT skills have been helpful in your leadership journey
- 00:37:55 Is there anything you learned as an OT that you have had to unlearn as a leader?
- 00:42:27 What’s been the most helpful thing you’ve done to grow as a leader?
- 00:44:47 What advice do you have for OTs who are ready to grow as leaders?
- 00:48:27 How do we encourage more OTs to step into formal leadership roles?
Supplemental Resources
- Advancing Women in Healthcare Leadership: A systematic review and meta-synthesis of multi-sector evidence on organisational interventions.
- Perceptions of leadership styles in occupational therapy practice.
Article Review
Read Full Text: Best Practices in Leadership Curriculum Development: A Case Study of a Curriculum Designed to Foster Authentic Leadership Skills in Graduate Students (This is a paid article, but we still thought it was important to cover.)
Journal: Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice
Year Published: 2021
The world desperately needs OT leaders.
More than that, it needs leaders who can think holistically—who understand what it takes to effect change at both the individual and systems levels. It needs storytellers, collaborators, and compassionate thinkers.
And, these are all innate qualities of occupational therapy professionals.
Here, we’ll explore a paper on best practices in OT leadership curriculum development. This will help us understand the practical steps involved in nurturing OT leadership—and ensuring our profession enters the next era of care guided by a strong cohort of well-prepared leaders.
After we review the article, we are thrilled to welcome to the podcast Dr. Victoria Garcia Wilburn, State Representative for Indiana House District 32. She and I will discuss the hard-won lessons in leadership that she has logged over the course of her career—as well as her advice to OTs who are interested in stepping into a leadership role.
Let’s dive in.
Why is leadership important?
This article presents an expansive vision of leadership. The authors state:
Leadership exists at every level of an organization, and leadership opportunities can be formal and informal.
When leadership extends beyond positional hierarchy, job titles, and management, it is a process of social influence working toward communal achievement of a goal.
When leadership is defined as a mechanism for goal-oriented change that can arise from all levels, it’s easy to understand why all professionals should be trained in leadership.
Leadership development in higher education
And indeed, the majority of U.S. colleges and universities include leadership development as part of their educational mission statement.
Despite this focus, few institutions actually measure leadership qualities and outcomes. This raises questions about what leadership development looks like from a curriculum standpoint—and what meaningful impact it can have for students. Which leads us to this paper…
What was the intent of this paper?
This paper was written by two OT professors/scholars.
To identify best practices for creating leadership development programs, the authors completed an extensive review of literature from the fields of occupational therapy, psychology, education, business, human resource development, leadership and management, coaching, and more.
They then presented a case study based on these best practices.
What leadership development best practices did they find in the literature?
Based on common themes that emerged throughout their review, the authors established 5 best practices for leadership curriculum development:
- Define leadership specific to the program.
- Employ specific and varied methods of instruction in leadership.
- Incorporate sustainability into leadership training, so that it can be a skillset transferred to practice.
- Develop educational content that allows for personal growth, conceptual understanding, feedback, and skill-building.
- Evaluate the leadership program to determine its impact on leadership as a programmatic outcome.
Please note: There is a lot of detail in the literature review section that could be helpful for OT professionals who are developing leadership programs, but for our purposes, I am going to focus on the case study section. That way, practitioners can see the type of curriculum that is actually being taught to our students—and hopefully, reflect on their own leadership journey.
Case Study: Leadership curriculum development in an OT program
This case study is from the OTD program at Chatham University. We’ll walk through how the program addresses each of the 5 best practices noted above.
1. Define leadership specific to the program.
In this program, leadership was defined according to the Authentic Leadership Theory.
Here are the 4 main components of authentic leadership:
1. Self-awareness
2. Balanced thinking
3. Strong sense of morality
4. Transparency
Also underpinning this theory is the idea that leaders are committed to bettering themselves. The focus on self awareness and personal growth aligns well with the program’s emphasis on reflective practice.
In addition to the authors’ summary of the evidence supporting this theory, I think this quote from the Harvard Business Review captures its essence quite nicely:
“Employees’ perception of authentic leadership serves as the strongest predictor of job satisfaction and positively impacts work-related attitudes and happiness.”
2. Employ specific and varied methods of instruction for leadership.
To ensure specific instructional methods are employed, this program designates a course learning outcome for each course related to leadership. (If you are interested in what this looks like, you can see the program’s mapping of courses to learning objectives in the appendix of the full paper.)
To ensure there is variation in instruction methods, course instructors can draw from Congers 4 Approaches to Leadership Development:
3. Incorporate sustainability into leadership training, so that it can be a skillset transferred to practice.
One key to sustainability in this program is that the responsibility to teach leadership does not fall on any one person. Instead, all faculty commit to incorporating one learning objective and one learning activity specific to leadership within their course each semester.
4. Develop educational content that allows for personal growth, conceptual understanding, feedback, and skill-building.
Each student is assigned a faculty leadership advisor to meet one-on-one with each semester. This allows faculty to provide individual guidance and feedback on the student’s leadership development. Students also complete an individual professional behavior assessment and contribute to a leadership portfolio each semester. Additionally, they engage in group leadership meetings to give and receive feedback from peers.
5. Evaluate the leadership program to determine its impact on leadership as a programmatic outcome.
The evaluation plan for this particular program includes using the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire. (Here’s a paid version and here’s a free version.)
Short-term outcomes for the students included:
- Increased awareness of themselves as a leader.
- Increased understanding of what leadership means in OT practice.
- Increased leadership skills as assessed by the ALQ
Long-term outcomes included:
- An increase in self-perceived confidence to use leadership skills as indicated by an alumni survey 6 months after graduation.
- Agreement on the relevance and value of leadership curriculum for utilizing leadership skills in entry-level practice.
Conclusion
The authors end with this broad advice.
Leadership initiatives should:
- Encourage authenticity.
- Focus on helping individuals lead from where they are.
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