Developing Emerging Physician Leaders At Novant Health
To strengthen leadership capabilities, Novant Health sought to equip emerging physician leaders with practical skills they could apply in their everyday work. Through a partnership with Practicing Excellence, Novant focused on strengthening leaders’ communication, collaboration, collegiality, and change leadership.
Over six months, pre- and post-assessments showed improvement across 100% of the leadership skills measured among participating physician and APP leaders.
The Situation
As Novant Health continued to evolve across multiple markets, organizational leaders saw an opportunity to strengthen leadership consistency and effectiveness among emerging clinician leaders.
Pre-assessment findings highlighted opportunities to improve communication, decision-making, team engagement, and cross-market alignment. Physician leaders also wanted to strengthen skills such as active listening, conflict resolution, and adaptability.
As a result, Novant wanted to provide leaders with practical tools to help them better navigate change, strengthen collaboration and collegiality, and create a greater sense of trust and belonging across their teams.
Building Skills For Everyday Practice
Practicing Excellence partnered with Novant Health to support 45 physician and APP leaders through a six-month leadership development program. Participants built skills in active listening, growth mindset, change and conflict management, mission and vision development, collegiality, collaboration, self-awareness, and gratitude, applying what they learned in their everyday work as leaders.
Workshops, weekly coaching videos, app-based reinforcement and application nudges, and learning resources helped leaders put their new skills into practice.
The Results
Over the course of six months, participants improved across 100% of the leadership skills measured from pre- to post-assessment, including a 32% improvement in crafting a vision and mission, 30% improvement in growth mindset, and the complete elimination of low-performance ratings in collegiality.
Additionally, 100% of participants reported that they found value in Practicing Excellence as a leadership development resource and expressed interest in continued access to the platform.
Of their experience, one Novant Leader said, “I am grateful to have participated in this program with colleagues across the system. This provided me with a sense of belonging. The program has given me the tools to be genuine when engaging with my team. It has taught me to be an active listener and lead with humility. Mostly, it helped me determine how I want to lead by speaking with truth.”
Learn More About The Approach
Read the full case study to learn more about Practicing Excellence’s approach, the results, and how the program combined assessment, workshops, micro-learning, and practical application to create measurable growth in everyday leadership capabilities.
Caroline Anderson is a Content Specialist at Practicing Excellence, specializing in developing and delivering curriculum for the healthcare workforce. She brings a talent for turning complex ideas into practical insights and is passionate about using the power of storytelling to spark meaningful change.
