Leadership Characteristics of Extension Educators Facilitating a Healthy Communities, Civic-Engagement Randomized Trial in Rural Towns

Leadership styles and skills are associated with group dynamics, creativity, and project implementation in community change initiatives; specifically, collaborative leadership skills can lead to a greater likelihood of effective, sustainable improvement in the health of communities. This study sought to examine the leadership styles and skills of Extension program educators engaged in leading a community policy, system, and environmental change initiative. Our aim was to describe how collaborative the leadership style of these leaders was and how high they scored in collaborative leadership skills. Data were collected among Extension educators at baseline (n=7), prior to program training or implementation, focused on leadership style and collaborative leadership skills. A 16-item leadership styles survey was used to assess educators’ scores for four leadership styles: 1) authoritative; 2) democratic; 3) facilitative; 4) situational. Collaborative leadership skills were measured using the Turning Point Collaborative Leadership Questionnaire, which evaluates key behaviors within the six skills of effective collaborative leaders: assessing the environment, creating clarity, building trust, sharing power and influence, developing people, and self-reflection. Educators were most often authoritative in their leadership style, although four out of seven educators had tied highest scores for styles. Most educators scored as excellent in assessing the environment (n=4), sharing power and influence (n=5), and developing people (n=5). The highest proportions were in the strong category for creating clarity (n=4), building trust (n=4), and self-reflection (n=4). While educators demonstrated variety across the characteristics, there were consistencies both in leadership type and collaborative skills. Clinical Trial #: NCT05002660. ClinicalTrials.gov. Registered 4 August 2021.