Abstract
A guidepost of Vision 2025, OT is influential in changing policies, environments, and complex systems, and the profession needs to hone leadership skills amid students and practitioners. Students’ perceptions of leadership abilities were evaluated for leadership themes. Thoughts of needing years of experience and being granted permission to lead were among the included themes. Leadership is an important issue for the profession as a whole.
Primary Author and Speaker: Suzanne Rappaport
The profession of occupational therapy has always required and advanced from effective leaders, but leadership is not reserved for a select minority. Instead, it is held for individuals’ ready and apt take a leadership directive (Snodgrass, 2011). The purpose of this study was to evaluate second year occupational therapy graduate students’ perceptions of leadership abilities through content analysis of reflective assignments. Leadership is an essential aspect of meeting the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA’s) Vision 2025 statement which articulates leaders as one of the four guideposts to further the vision’s core tenants (AOTA, 2017). The rationale for this study was to analyze second year occupational therapy graduate students’ viewpoint of leadership as a phenomenological exploration of leadership attitudes and self-perceived abilities. Leadership abilities is an identified area of need for guidance of the profession past the Centennial Vision (AOTA, 2017). The study design was qualitative and used content analysis. This method utilized examined written text through systematic description of the meaning of text as viewed through a coding frame (Creswell, 2012). Data was collected from second-year MSOT students who had completed a semester of an occupational therapy leadership course. It was a convenience sample analyzing reflective leadership assignments. The coding frame determined perceptions of leadership knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Themes included thoughts of requiring years of experience before feeling vetted for leadership and expectations of being granted permission to lead. There was a preference for servant leadership, democratic leadership, and emergent leadership styles. Leadership is an important issue for practitioners and the profession as a whole (Ricketts, 2015). This study provides insight into students’ perceptions of leadership abilities and illuminates areas for focus to strengthen the position of occupational therapists as leaders. One of the guideposts of Vision 2025, occupational therapy is influential in changing policies, environments, and complex systems (AOTA, 2017) and the profession needs to hone leadership skills amid students and practitioners.
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Creswell, John W. (2012). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Ricketts, P. (2015). Looking back, looking forward: Perspectives on clinical leadership in occupational therapy. British Journal of Occupational Therapy; 2015 Supplement, Vol. 78, 21.
Snodgrass, Jeff. (2011). Leadership development. In Jacobs, K. & McCormack, G.L. (Eds.), The occupational therapy manager, 5th edition. (pp. 265-279). Bethesda, MD: AOTA Press, Inc.