Leadership training to develop self-leadership of medical students

Purpose As agents of change to improve the quality of health services, medical students are expected to have leadership competency. Leadership competency should start by leading themselves. Demonstrating personal qualities domain in the Medical Leadership Competency Framework can be used to design leadership education. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of leadership training on the personal qualities of medical students. Design/methodology/approach This research was a quasi-experimental study. Thirty-three third-year medical students were included in the training. Leadership training in this study was designed based on the personal qualities domain of the Medical Leadership Competency Framework combined with other learning pedagogies. The training lasted 15 days, consisting of workshops and student project sessions. The training evaluation used Kirkpatrick’s program evaluation level one and two. Level one evaluated student satisfaction. Level two evaluated affective, behavioral and cognitive learning gains. Behavioral learning gains were further explored with in-depth interviews. Findings Participants rated workshops and student project sessions positively. This training significantly increased behavioral and cognitive learning gains (p < 0.05). However, the results showed that training did not significantly increase affective learning gains (p > 0.05). Qualitatively, participants positively described the development of their personal qualities in the learning context. Originality/value This study describes leadership training using the Medical Leadership Competency Framework and several learning pedagogies that support the leadership development of medical students.