Leadership Reimagined: Integrating Futures Thinking into Health Sciences Education

Background: Leadership in Health Sciences Education (HSE) presents a complex and constantly evolving problem that affects health and educational outcomes. Leadership is crucial to any healthcare system, as it can influence health and educational outcomes and drive innovation. However, major gaps in leadership research in the HSE remain, particularly in complex social contexts. The main issue addressed in this study is the ineffectiveness of current leadership and problem-solving approaches in the HSE sector. The main critique is that these approaches are long, expensive, impractical, and prone to publication bias. These phenomena are linked to the inherent assumptions in these approaches that favor superficial solutions to complex questions, which is inappropriate for complex adaptive systems such as HSE, particularly in a social context such as leadership. Purpose: The main objective was to build a comprehensive understanding of the future of HSE through an analysis of narratives, systemic causes, worldviews, and myths/metaphors based on practitioner perspectives within the context of the study. The study also aimed to provide an overview of Futures thinking, focusing on its potential application in HSE leadership and offering recommendations on how HSE leaders can use it as a framework for anticipation, navigation, advocacy, and action. Methods: To address the complexity of leadership of HSE, we employed a qualitative research approach guided by a Futures theoretical framework called causal layered analysis (CLA) to map and gain a deeper understanding of the complexities. The data was collected through various sources, including a group CLA class activity following the narrative inquiry research strategy. Results: We present our findings from a Futures perspective as reconstructed narratives targeting a multi-disciplinary audience. We identified five narrative themes, including 1. The current state of HSE professionals, 2. Apathy towards the existing systems, 3. Systemic barriers to practice, 4. Trapped in political agendas, and 5. Paternalistic dynamics. Conclusion: There is a need for an integrative approach in HSE leadership. Existing approaches are fragmented and thus lack the comprehensiveness that the current times demand. Introducing the Futures lens to HSE leadership can prove valuable as it offers holistic, robust, and accessible alternatives.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Professional Leadership, Education

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Alsulaimi, Abdulrahman Mohammed

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Hausmann, Robert C
• McNeil, Sara G

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Hines, Andrew
• Ratnani, Iqbal
• Day, Susan X

• Health Sciences, Education

Language dc:language.iso

English

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/21056

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/21056