Background

Global challenges call for more integrated and person-centered healthcare. Effective leadership is essential in enabling this shift, and leadership education plays an important supporting role. In Sweden, a leadership program focusing on person-centered leadership has been developed to facilitate the transition to person-centered and integrated care (PC-IC). However, despite increasing demand, such programs remain largely unexplored from a learning perspective. This study aims to explore learning processes among leaders participating in a leadership program designed to support the transition toward person-centered and integrated care.

Methods

A constructivist grounded theory approach was applied in data collection and analysis. Individual interviews were conducted with eleven leaders from diverse organizations and levels across Sweden who participated in the leadership program in either 2022 or 2023. Data from participants’ final graduation presentations on lessons learned were theoretically sampled.

Results

The program allowed leaders to adapt the educational content to professional contexts, personalizing their learning experience. This aspect is captured in the core category navigating a person-centered learning journey. Three parallel categories capturing processes (orienting on a person-centered inner journey, exploring person-centeredness with others, and operationalizing person-centeredness in practice), together with the contextual category challenged in different arenas provide insights into facilitators and barriers of learning person-centered leadership.

Conclusions

Taken together, the findings highlight that learning person-centered leadership is best understood as an ongoing, iterative journey. Three interconnected processes uniquely influenced this journey, through which leaders actively shaped and adapted their learning via reflection, shared exploration, and practical application. These processes were shaped by contextual conditions that both facilitated and constrained engagement, providing insights for designing leadership programs supporting PC-IC.