Kind and sinful, the meaning of my leadership experience in medical education. An autoethnographic narrative inquiry

Abstract

Introduction: Much emphasis has been placed on investigating the attributes of the educational leader, but less attention has been given to understanding his/her leadership experience. Nonetheless, exploring that experience is crucial to reduce the gap between what that person should be doing and what he/she is actually doing. Aim: To understand the meaning of my experience as a leader in medical education from a personal and pragmatic perspective. Methods: I adopt a qualitative approach, supported by an autoethnogra-phic narrative inquiry. For this reason, the manuscript was written in first person. I collected journal records and conducted four (auto)semi-structu-red interviews to recall critical events (directly or indirectly) related to my life as an educational leader. I analyzed the texts looking for characters, tempo-rality and locations, as well as cultural aspects, tensions and metaphors of my life stories. Results: I composed four resonant plots represented in the following me-taphors: a) the original sin, b) the bad son leaves home, c) snakes’ heads must be cut off, and d) the apocalypse arrived. Conclusion: My story led me to hold a different understanding of medical education leadership. This understanding accounts for intrapersonal tensions and how the use of power changes you in practice, more than it changes other people around you (as theoretically assumed).