AI-enabled qualitative analysis: person-centred leadership

According to the PLOS One study by Klinga et al. (2026), participation in a six-month person-centred leadership programme in 2022 was experienced to change leaders’ practices at three levels: self-leadership, team-leadership, and workforce development. PLOS One

• 13 leaders were interviewed between 27 January 2023 and 16 March 2023, and the interviews averaged 52 minutes each, according to PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026).
• The programme admitted 80 leaders in 2022 and ran six modules combining flipped-classroom digital content, in-person workshops, and workplace-based assignments, according to PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026).
• Participants reported three development visions ("Live as you learn, " "Strive for equal relations, " and "Enable co-creation") that map to concrete actions leaders used to translate person-centred ethics into practice, as reported by PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026).

Answer: The PLOS One study used purposive sampling and conventional content analysis to explore leaders’ experiences after a six-month programme offered in 2022. According to PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026), the authors purposefully selected 13 participants from the cohort of 80 admitted leaders in 2022 and conducted individual digital interviews between 27 January 2023 and 16 March 2023.

According to PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026), interviews lasted 40 to 65 minutes (mean 52 minutes), were transcribed verbatim, and were analysed using conventional content analysis with an interpretative step that linked categories to an overarching theme using three leadership concepts.

According to PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026), the programme curriculum included six modules (foundations, communication, implementation strategies, being person-centred, ethics, and leading future care) and required workplace assignments and reflective journals to ground learning in practice.

Answer: The PLOS One findings show that leadership changes are multi-level and context-dependent, so qualitative analyses must preserve participant voice and organisational preconditions. According to PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026), leaders described development across self, team, and workforce levels and emphasised organisational preconditions such as managerial support and time to coach teams.

Researchers should therefore prioritise coding schemes that 1) separate self-leadership, team-leadership, and workforce-development codes, 2) tag quotations with timestamps and interview IDs, and 3) capture preconditions and barriers as distinct analytic categories, as suggested by the PLOS One study (Klinga et al., 2026).

Practitioners and evaluators should note that the study reported variable uptake: some participants described rapid mindset shifts while others cited insufficient organisational preconditions, which implies that programme effect sizes are likely heterogeneous and warrant mixed-methods follow-up, according to PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026).

Ethics note: This post summarises non-diagnostic, research-focused findings; the original study restricted data access for confidentiality via the Swedish Ethical Review Authority, according to PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026).

Answer: The PLOS One study (Klinga et al., 2026) documents that a structured six-month person-centred leadership programme produced multi-level changes in leaders’ practices when organisational preconditions were present.

Researchers who need to reproduce or extend that synthesis should preserve interview provenance, tag preconditions as distinct codes, and extract representative quotations for transparent reporting, following the methods described in PLOS One (Klinga et al., 2026).

If you run qualitative evaluations of leadership programmes and want faster thematic synthesis, traceable quotations, and cross-segment charts, Evidano can ingest transcripts and deliver codebooks and visualisations ready for publication; learn more at Evidano features.

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