The Emerging Leaders in Public Health Initiative: Leadership Development to Advance Public Health Practice

Abstract

Context: Effective leadership is essential for governmental public health agencies to promote and protect the health of their communities.

Objective: The Emerging Leaders in Public Health Initiative, a program of The Kresge Foundation, was implemented to strengthen leadership in governmental public health. We seek to examine lessons from the initiative to contribute to the field a better understanding of leadership development practices.

Design: An external evaluator conducted a retrospective analysis of participant responses postinitiative to assess the overall impact of the initiative and explore which components were most valuable.

Setting: United States.

Participants: Directors and other staff from governmental public health agencies were recruited in 2-person teams to participate in 3 successive cohorts.

Intervention: Drawn from adaptive leadership principles, a framework was developed to guide the selection and implementation of educational and experiential activities. Participants were challenged to develop a new role for their public health agency, which provided a learning laboratory to practice individual and team leadership skills. The Kresge Foundation provided participants with a resource grant and a National Program Office offered convenings, webinars, coaching, and technical assistance over the 18 months of the developmental experience.

Main outcome measures: Satisfaction, perceived value of components, and future intentions were assessed from participants in cohorts II and III (n = 70). The overall response rate was 93%.

Results: One hundred four diverse leaders from 52 agencies, representing 30 states participated in the initiative. Participants were extremely satisfied with the program (94%) and indicated a strong likelihood of recommending it to a colleague (96%). Unrestricted grant funding, peer learning, and in-person learning sessions were the program components rated most highly valuable.

Conclusions: This initiative offers insights into principles and processes to be considered for future public health leadership development.