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The purpose of this paper was to assess two different leader development interventions by comparing their effects on leadership behaviour and evaluating their combined impact after two years, from the viewpoints of both the participating managers and external raters.

The study was a longitudinal randomised controlled trial with a cross-over design. Health care managers (n = 177) were first randomised to either of two 10-month interventions and a year later were switched to the other intervention. Leadership behaviour was rated at pre-test and 12 and 24 months by participating managers and their superiors, colleagues and subordinates using a 360-degree instrument. Analysis of variance and multilevel regression analysis was performed.

No difference in effect on leadership behaviour was found between the two interventions. The evaluation of the combined effect of the interventions on leadership behaviour showed inconsistent (i.e. both increased and decreased) ratings by the various rater sources.

This study provides some evidence that participation in leadership development programmes can improve managers’ leadership behaviours, but the results also highlight the interpretive challenges connected with using a 360-degree instrument to evaluate such development.

The longitudinal randomised controlled design and the large sample comprising both managers and external raters make this study unusually rigorous in the field of leadership development evaluations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between leadership profiles and differences in managers’ own levels of work stress symptoms and perceptions of work stressors causing stress.

Cross-sectional data were used. Healthcare managers (n = 188) rated three dimensions of their leadership behavior and levels of work stressors and stress. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to identify leadership profiles based on leadership behaviors. Differences in stress-related outcomes between profiles were assessed using one-way analysis of variance.

Four distinct clusters of leadership profiles were found. They discriminated in perception of work stressors and stress: the profile distinguished by the lowest mean in all behavior dimensions, exhibited a pattern with significantly more negative ratings compared to the other profiles.

This paper proposes that leadership profile is an individual factor involved in the stress process, including work stressors and stress, which may inform targeted health promoting interventions for healthcare managers.

This is the first study to investigate the relationship between leadership profiles and work stressors and stress in healthcare managers.