Leadership walkarounds and performance improvement

Do Leadership Walkarounds (LWs) positively impact operational, cultural and clinical outcomes? Another systematic review (in healthcare, again) suggests ‘Yes’.

12 healthcare studies met inclusion criteria.

First, they noted based on prior evidence:

· A prior lit review found that LWs were generally effective in informing leaders on safety issues that impacted front-line staff and patients

· LWs may “remove the ineffectual, layered and indirect communication flows that commonly exist between senior leaders and front-line workers”

· Despite benefits, some research found reduced performance following LW interventions

Based on this newer lit review, they found:

· LWs were found to generally “help staff, nurses and physicians feel psychologically safer to report, discuss and learn from errors”

· Their results suggested that “longer exposure to LWs combined with feedback mechanisms appears to be associated with a more definitive and positive impact of LWs on operational and cultural outcomes”

· And “The manifestation of such positive association could be viewed as an early warning system of potential system latent failures”.

Compared to a previous systematic literature review which found some unintended consequences of LWs (lower perceptions of performance in some instances), this study only found positive benefits.