3531 Evaluation of a Team Leadership Assessment Center Study for Scientists

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The objective for the present study is to evaluate qualitatively the Team Leadership Assessment Center (LAC) at UTMB-Galveston. There has been much discussion about the need for leader development within team science (Börner, et al, 2010; Falk-Krzensinski, etal., 2011). The LAC was designed to examine the study participants’ beliefs and perceptions of and competencies in team leadership by means of a multi-trait multi-method approach. Our team competency model involves seven dimensions and twenty-five specific competencies. There were two complementary components to the evaluation: a quantitative survey and a series of qualitative interviews, to be discussed here. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The study population for the qualitative component consisted of seventeen volunteers from the pool of fifty-one LAC participants, including trainees (KL2 scholars, TL1 scholars) as well as assistant professors, and early career associate professors. Each volunteer respondent was engaged in a twenty to thirty-minute, recorded, conversational, telephone interview. They were asked to describe and evaluate their LAC experience in their own words, perceptions, and values. The study was reviewed by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects at UTMB. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Major findings from respondents’ overall assessment of their Center experience include:. All respondents stated that the LAC was a worthwhile experience. All respondents stated they would be willing to participate in any follow-up LAC activity. Before the LAC experience, most respondents indicated that they perceived leadership as a condition or feature of a job, appointment, or profession and not an individualistic feature of personality or experience. Ideational or conceptual definitions of leadership were superseded by administrative or managerial tropes. Major categorical indexes were related to occupational status. The generally belief is one is not trained to be a leader, but to perform leadership tasks. Significant differences among respondents tended to cluster around occupational positions and statuses at UTMB, for example:. Surgeons feel they are team oriented and their work is organized according to necessary tasks. Assistant professors and post-docs generally perceive the design of leadership as defined by the demands of their specialized field, not determined institutionally or professionally. A general take-away was the sense that, although some participants did not consider themselves to be “leaders” before the training, most felt that the “pressure” to be or become a leader was relieved a bit by the LAC. One was only expected to develop leadership skills and strategies, not change one’s Self-Identity. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT:. The more complex the job status, the less critical is the need to achieve the Self-Identity of “leader.” Complaints about the LAC were very few and non-modal in occurrence. A general recommendation would be for the facilitators of programs like LAC to take cultural differences more into consideration. The most highly rated feature of the LAC is the personal attention given to participants during the one-on-one evaluation profile.