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Abstract

Purpose: This study investigated how medical students – as future physicians – perceive the relevance of Mintzberg’s ten managerial roles to physician leadership, and whether these perceptions change throughout medical education.

Method: In 2021, all first‑year (n = 116/116) and 98% of final‑year (n = 107/109) students at the University of Oulu, Finland completed a web‑based survey rating Mintzberg’s ten managerial roles in fulfilling physician leaders’ leadership work on a 5‑point Likert scale. Item reliability and internal consistency were examined with Cronbach’s α. Because Likert data are ordinal, medians and interquartile ranges (IQRs) were calculated, and group differences were tested with the Mann‑Whitney U test. Rank‑biserial correlation (r) quantified effect sizes.

Results: In both cohorts, all managerial roles were rated positively (median ≥ 4). The rank ordering detailed above was almost identical across cohorts. A shared hierarchy emerged: Leader ≈ Disseminator > Negotiator > Monitor/Liaison ≈ Disturbance Handler ≈ Resource Allocator > Spokesperson > Figurehead ≈ Entrepreneur. Internal consistency was good in both cohorts (α > 0.87). The Mann-Whitney tests revealed no significant differences between first- and final-year students for any role (0.085 ≤ p ≤ 0.780); all effects were small (0.02 ≤ r ≤ 0.11).

Conclusion: The absence of perceptual drift across training suggests that perceptions of leadership are shaped early, likely through professional culture and informal learning, and underscores the value of early integration of leadership education into medical curricula.

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