Abstract
The starting point for this thesis is the national leader mobilization initiative that seeks to identify, inspire, and motivate young clinicians to take on leadership roles in the Norwegian specialist health care in the future. The initiative is taken to be able to deal with the urgent need of successors as many of the current leaders are approaching retirement age. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to an increase of the effectiveness of similar future initiatives, and to contribute to a higher knowledge about the clinicians motivation for management and leadership roles. This is done by providing a better understanding of the participants motivation to attend this particular program, and their motivation for leadership roles. The study presented is a qualitative study. 11 participants (from two different hospitals out of four partaking in the program) who either have backgrounds as nurses or doctors are interviewed. The interviews conducted were semi-structured in form. My most noteworthy findings are that certain elements in their motivation for attending this program and for leadership in general, are influenced by the organizations themselves. For participation in this program, the level of encouragement they felt from their closest managers, to a high degree affected their motivation in a positive way. In addition, regarding their motivation for leadership roles, I found that it increased along with their positive experiences and feedbacks after taking on small managerial tasks and projects. I also identified certain challenges that need to be addressed, such as the perceived loss of respect and authority that followed with stepping into management. Participants with a medical background especially emphasized the latter point. In the future, by focusing on the parts of their motivation that is possible to affect, alongside with slowly dealing with the challenges that are presented, the effectiveness of such initiatives and clinicians motivation for taking on leadership roles could be increased.