Enhancing Leadership Self-Efficacy Among Women in Academic Emergency Medicine

Women continue to be underrepresented in emergency medicine leadership, partly due to sex-based stereotypes that prize agentic traits such as assertiveness over communal skills like collaboration and empathy. Leadership self-efficacy, an individual's belief in their capability to execute leadership roles, serves as a key predictor of leadership emergence. To address this disparity, investigators developed a 90-minute didactic session comprising a panel of diverse women leaders followed by an interactive, case-based exercise presented at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine 35th Annual Meeting in 2024.

The workshop was evaluated using pre- and postsession surveys derived from an adapted Leadership Self-Efficacy Scale, measuring confidence across six leadership domains on a seven-point Likert scale. A total of 18 participants completed both surveys, generating 18 matched pre-post pairs analyzed via paired t-tests. Mean self-efficacy scores increased across all six domains postintervention. Dimension 1 (Leading Change) increased significantly, with a mean change of +0.72/7 (P = .001), as did Dimension 2 (Choosing team/Delegating), with a mean change of +0.61/7 (P = .004). Dimensions 3 through 6 showed positive but nonsignificant trends. The authors concluded that the single-session workshop was associated with increased leadership self-efficacy, particularly in leading change and team-building, and may serve as an adaptable model for academic medical institutions.