PLoS: Qualitative analysis of person-centred leadership

According to PLOS One (published July 22, 2026), a six-month person-centred leadership programme for SAHP members generated self-reported changes across three development tracks: self-leadership, team-leadership, and workforce development.

• 13 leaders were purposefully interviewed between 27 January 2023 and 16 March 2023, with interviews averaging 52 minutes, as reported in PLOS One on July 22, 2026.
• The programme admitted 80 leaders during 2022 and ran six modules combining flipped-classroom digital content, workshops, and workplace assignments, according to PLOS One (2026).
• Participants described three guiding visions (Live as you learn, Strive for equal relations, and Enable co-creation) that map to nine sub-categories of practice change in the PLOS One study.
• Direct participant evidence includes: "You get the chance to pause and reflect in a way that you don’t usually do" (Interview 10, PLOS One, 2026) and "It’s about using words without defining what we mean by those words" (Interview 5, PLOS One, 2026).

The PLOS One study (published July 22, 2026) conducted a qualitative exploratory analysis by interviewing 13 leaders who completed a six-month person-centred leadership programme delivered in 2022.

According to PLOS One, the programme combined six curriculum modules, flipped-classroom lectures, in-person workshops, workplace assignments, and reflective journals; researchers conducted digital interviews between 27 January 2023 and 16 March 2023 and analysed transcripts using conventional content analysis with three analytical tracks: self-leadership, team-leadership, and workforce development.

Constraints noted by the authors include purposive sampling of 13 of the 80 enrolled leaders in 2022 and potential positive-response bias from participants who completed the programme, as discussed in PLOS One (2026).

For qualitative researchers: the PLOS One study (July 22, 2026) demonstrates how linking conventional content analysis to explicit analytical tracks (self-leadership, team-leadership, workforce development) makes thematic findings more transferable and testable.

For leadership development designers: PLOS One reports that embedding workplace assignments and peer reflection increased perceived transfer to practice; therefore designers should plan coaching and organisational preconditions (time, managerial support) during and after training.

For evaluation teams: PLOS One recommends triangulation beyond leader self-report, for example collecting employee and patient perspectives and using pre-post quantitative measures to validate behavioural change claims over time.

The PLOS One study (published July 22, 2026) provides concrete qualitative evidence that a six-month person-centred leadership programme can influence self-leadership, team-leadership, and workforce development when organisational preconditions are met.

Researchers can fast-track reproducible thematic synthesis by combining the study’s three analytical tracks with AI-assisted coding, quote provenance, and visual analytics.

If you want to run AI-enabled qualitative analyses of interviews like the PLOS One team did, Try Evidano for free to upload transcripts, generate thematic and frequency analyses, and export publication-ready quotes and audit trails.