Background

Lithuanian and international public health experts emphasize the importance of leadership in public health. The aim of this study - to evaluate the leadership practices among chief executive officers (CEO's) of Lithuanian public health institutions.

Methods

The data was collected in a cross-sectional study, in 2015. Questionnaires were distributed to all CEO's (directors, vice-directors and heads of regional offices) of Lithuanian public health institutions (N = 90). Response rate - 60.0%. Respondents were asked to fill Leadership Practices inventory (LPI) (Kouzes & Posner 2002). LPI evaluates leaders based on their performance of the best leadership practices. It has 30 leadership practice items, and for each item are 10 possible responses, from ‘almost never' to ‘almost always', and measures five main practices: Model the way (MTW), Inspire a Shared Vision (ISV), Challenge the Process (CTP); Enable Other to Act (EOA) and Encourage the Heart (ETH). The score for a given practice therefore can range from a low of 6 to a high of 60. The continuous variables were presented as a mean along with a standard deviation.

Results

The results suggest that Lithuanian public health officers evaluated their leadership practice positively. The total LPI score was 250.59±27.22 (maximum is 300). The best scores have been received for practices: MTW (52.87±5.05), EOA (51.83±4.65) and ETH (50.37±6.15). The lower scores were for the following practices: ISV (47.89±8.20) and CTP (47.63±7.96). However, we identified that LPI total and practices scores were higher among respondents with management background, comparing with CEOs without it.

Conclusions

The study results suggested that CEO's of Lithuanian public health institutions evaluate their leadership practice positively. However, we recommend to include leadership training activities into curriculum of public health schools and to ensure continuing post-graduate training in leadership for public health specialists.