Nebraska Medical Foundation

Physician Leadership Academy

The Nebraska Medical Foundation (NMF) Physician Leadership Academy focuses on improving physician leader’s proficiency in 18 leadership competencies that are validated to improve leadership effectiveness. In addition, the program will provide strategies and practice to reduce any of nine reactive tendencies the physician leader may have that are associated with decreased leadership effectiveness. The program is a combination of small group learning, self-awareness, feedback, experiential learning and individual coaching.

NMF will pilot the program the first year with a cohort of 10 physicians, refine the program and the second year, conduct another program with a new cohort of 10 physicians. The program is built using adult learning theory developed by David Kolb that posited four linked styles of learning were necessary for adults to truly learn and change:

Concrete Experience: Adults utilize experiences as anchors for learning. We like to learn from the stuff of work and life. This program connects directly with the real challenges and objectives of the physician leaders.

Reflective Observation: We learn as we reflect on our experiences to make meaning from them. The Leader to Leader™ cohorts creates time and space for the physician leaders as they seek to make meaning out of their leadership experiences.

Abstract Conceptualization: As an experience is reflected on from a variety of angles, a generalizable theory, principle, or concept often emerges. A “rule of thumb” or a conclusion about what to do in certain types of leadership situations begins to gel for a leader.

Active Experimentation: In this step of the learning process, the physician leader takes the new lesson learned and puts it into practice in a series of behavioral experiments.