Developing Leadership Skills in Undergraduate Students

Leadership and management skills are essential for graduates entering careers in the health disciplines. It is well established that having dynamic leadership skills can lead to better outcomes for graduating students in terms of finding fulfilling careers and career progression. Most of the evidence for this comes from studies conducted in universities in countries such as the USA. There are still many programs offered in many universities around the world including Australia that do not offer many opportunities for students to develop their leadership skills. However, increasingly universities are starting to recognise the importance of providing leadership development opportunities to their students, with some universities developing specific leadership development programs. This paper examines key issues in the development and implementation of leadership development opportunities for undergraduate students aimed to build their leadership skills within health discipline related program curricula. Various strategies adopted in successful undergraduate leadership development programs offered by some universities are described. This paper also describes how some of these strategies could be incorporated into existing undergraduate programs to enhance student leadership and management skills. The Bachelor of Medical Science program at Charles Sturt University is used as one example to demonstrate how leadership development opportunities can be incorporated into a health related program to enable students to gain important skills in leadership and management.