The Interprofessional Advantage: How Mixed-Team Leadership Training Builds Trust, Communication, and Performance in Healthcare

Leadership development in healthcare is undergoing a long-overdue transformation. For decades, organizations have trained physicians, nurses, and administrators in silos — reinforcing the very cultural divides that undermine team effectiveness. These training models, while often well-intentioned, miss the mark when it comes to building the collaborative capacity required to address today’s most complex healthcare challenges.

The problem is partly a lack of physician leader development, and partly a lack of interprofessional integration within that development. Physicians are trained in clinical reasoning, nurses in patient coordination, and administrators in systems management, but rarely are they trained together. As a result, when healthcare teams encounter operational or ethical dilemmas, they often bring not only different expertise, but also different languages, communication methods, assumptions, and loyalties to the table. The result is mistrust, miscommunication, and suboptimal outcomes.(1,2)

Interprofessional education (IPE) offers a compelling solution. By designing leadership development programs that bring together physicians, nurses, and administrators in shared learning environments, healthcare organizations can bridge professional “faultlines” and foster the trust and mutual understanding that drive high-functioning teams. The benefits are not merely theoretical. When IPE-based leadership development is structured around measurable outcomes — such as communication, information exchange, and team cohesion — it has been shown to outperform homogenous training environments on multiple fronts.(3,4)

Healthcare is often portrayed as a single profession, but in practice, it is a mosaic of subcultures. Physicians, nurses, technicians, and administrators each bring distinct values, educational backgrounds, expectations, and problem-solving strategies. These subgroup differences can result in what organizational psychologists call faultlines — dividing lines within teams that reduce cohesion and impair communication.(4)

Faultlines are reinforced by the structure of professional development itself. Physicians may attend physician-only leadership programs tailored to clinical concerns.(5,6) Administrators attend conferences focused on financial strategy, business initiatives, or access to care. Nurses receive separate workshops focused on patient advocacy or regulatory compliance.

While these programs may offer targeted knowledge, they do little to foster shared understanding. Worse, they often reinforce tribal divisions.(1) Even in organizations that promote physician leadership, time constraints and culture gaps often prevent doctors from engaging in mixed-team leadership development.(7,8)

Building Teams and Trust

Interprofessional education directly challenges the siloed approach. Defined as learning “with, from, and about each other” across professions,(9) IPE creates environments where trust is built not just through exposure, but also through shared effort.

In leadership programs that incorporate IPE, physicians, nurses, and administrators jointly engage in case study analysis, simulations, and reflective learning. These interactions expose participants to the constraints and priorities of other professions. Over time, participants move from professional posturing to collaborative problem solving. Yet few organizations use an IPE approach.

Studies show that IPE programs reduce bias, increase trust, and foster mutual respect across professional divides.(10,11) At the organizational level, IPE correlates with improved communication, reduced conflict, and better performance in care coordination.(12,13)

IPE works not only because of who is in the room, but also because of how teams are composed and what they’re asked to do. Faultline theory research highlights two proven tactics to reduce subgroup bias in teams: crosscutting and superordinate goals.(4)

Crosscutting involves mixing individuals from subgroups so that no one subgroup dominates. In healthcare leadership training, this means intentionally creating mixed teams. This strategy increases perceived similarity by emphasizing overlapping roles and common values.(14,15)

Crosscutting disrupts stereotypes and accelerates team bonding. Participants begin to see colleagues from other professions not as outsiders but as collaborators.

Superordinate goals involve assigning teams challenging tasks that require collective input. These create a shared mission that transcends professional boundaries. When leadership programs include simulation exercises or strategy formulation, participants must pool their knowledge and co-create solutions.(16)

In one program, interprofessional teams redesigned care models and addressed call schedules. Physicians contributed clinical judgment, nurses highlighted workflow issues, and administrators addressed financial constraints. The solutions gained traction because they reflected collaboration.

In our study comparing traditional physician-only leadership courses to IPE programs, we found significant differences. IPE participants reported greater behavioral change in communication, higher rates of cross-functional information sharing, and more inclusive leadership behaviors — as rated not only by participants, but also by peers and supervisors.(3,4)

Two hypotheses guided this work:

• The effect of leadership training on physicians’ self-rated leadership, communication, and information exchange would be greater in interprofessional classes.

• Colleagues would observe greater post-training leadership improvement in physicians trained via IPE.

The data supported both hypotheses. Exposure to different professional cultures created a more adaptive leadership style that physicians carried into practice. They became better communicators — and bridges between silos.

Shifting the Culture

Siloed leadership training is a missed opportunity. Healthcare organizations seeking cultural transformation should prioritize interprofessional leadership development. This includes:

• Mixed learning cohorts.

• Team simulations and shared goals.

• 360-degree feedback.

• Framing leadership as trust-building across divides.

Interprofessional leadership development is more than a training model — it is a culture shift. When healthcare professionals learn, solve problems, and lead together, the results extend beyond the classroom. They build trust. They communicate clearly. And they make better decisions, together.

References

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3. Vincent J, Andrews D, Hertling MP, Galura S, Forlaw L. Impact of an Interprofessional leadership program on collaboration in practice. Interprof Pract Educ Eval. 2017;8(1):1–2. https://jdc.jefferson.edu/jcipe/vol8/iss1/4 .

4. Rico R, Sanchez-Manzanares M, Antino M, Lau D. Bridging team faultlines by combining task-role assignment and goal structure strategies. J Appl Psychol. 2012;97(2):407–420. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025231 .

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8. Hertling M, Dennis M, Bartlett R. Training: what the top non-profits do. Physician Leadership J. 2018;Nov/Dec:28–34.

9. World Health Organization. Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice. Geneva: WHO; 2010.

10. Yan J, Gilbert JHV, Hoffman SJ. World Health Organization Study Group on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice. Geneva: WHO Press; 2007.

11. Cohn K, Allyn T, Reid R. A strategy for engaging healthcare professionals: moving from me to we. J Manage Market Healthc. 2008;1(3):262–272. https://doi.org/10.1179/mmh.2008.1.3.262 .

12. Senot C, Chandrasekaran A, Ward P. Collaboration between services professionals during the delivery of healthcare. J Oper Manage. 2016;42-43:62–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2016.03.004

13. Eckler J, Schneller E. Physician leaders’ role in supply chain management. Physician Leadership J. 2015;Nov-Dec:22–25.

14. Brewer M. The psychology of prejudice: ingroup love and outgroup hate? J Soc Issues. 1999;55:429–444. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00126 .

15. Gaertner SL, Dovidio JF. Reducing Intergroup Bias: The Common Ingroup Identity Model. Philadelphia: Psychology Press; 2000.

16. Joshi A, Roh H. The role of context in work team diversity research: a meta-analytic review. Acad Manage J. 2009;52:599-627. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.41331491 .