• medical leadership
• doctor
• professionalism

The seminal 2013 report by Sir Robert Francis1 and those by Keogh and Berwick2 3 emphasised the important role junior doctors have as clinical leaders to drive improvement within the National Health Service. To deliver this, strong leadership and management skills are required; in fact, the need for leadership development throughout medical training has been well documented through these reports.1–3

The Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management (FMLM) Trainee Steering Group (TSG), which comprises junior doctors from across the UK, has a keen interest in developing and empowering junior doctors to recognise their leadership potential and responsibilities. It achieves this through a supportive network, a range of specific initiatives and through advocacy.

The TSG has recognised the need for a greater understanding of junior doctors’ current experiences of, and attitudes towards, leadership and management. This has led to three specific programmes of work, and the main elements of each are explored below.

First, an anonymous online survey of the attitudes of junior doctors to leadership and management was conducted across the four UK nations.4 This revealed that leadership and management training was considered important but most lacked adequate access to it, with 50% of all respondents feeling their own training was inadequate to implement change. Despite 83% of respondents stating they had completed an audit or …