Box 1.
Additional Representative Quotes by Theme
| The importance of being seen and valued as a whole person |
| “Having [a woman mentor] be honest about her own personal struggles of being a mom, having two kids, being a wife… She was very open about her personal life and it made me feel as if I am not alone. I felt that she saw me for who I was and she understood. She took time to understand what my goals would be. And that has molded me throughout these past four years. That’s been helpful”. (URiM) |
| Balancing an interplay between the individual and the collective |
| Individual perspective: |
| “What I value is integrity. Meaning that whatever is being done, whatever the end is, should not have to compromise who you are [and] whatever it is you believe”. (URiM) |
| “[A future leadership role] would have to align with my general values of prioritizing patients… and prioritizing the people [I] work with. I see clinical or administrative leadership roles where the interest of the organization that they have to represent is very different from [the priorities of] the doctors that are practicing or even the patients. You have budget and clinical revenue [as organizational priorities]”. (non-URiM) |
| Collective perspective: |
| “If I am leading a team, I still want everybody to have a team dynamic and be making progress and relying on one another to some extent. I find that’s more interesting and brings more novelty to the situation”. (non-URiM) |
| “These are my goals. If this is feasible, I’d like to do [the leadership role]. And if it’s not, then that’s okay. Other people can do it. I do not have a problem with that. They may have a better fit for the vision [of] leadership, and that’s perfectly reasonable”. (non-URiM) |
| Discomfort with the unknown: a desire to fully understand a leadership position and its future impact on personal and professional life |
| “One of the things I fear with leadership positions is losing that [work-life] balance… Not having the mental time [and] resources to do everything I want to do. And not being able to say ‘no’ to something or drop something else in lieu of [the] leadership position”. (non-URiM) |
| “[I would need to know that I could] reduce some of my clinical work… so I would be able to focus more on [the] leadership position”. (non-URiM) |
| Representation matters: the importance of having women leaders who have experienced similar challenges as the participants |
| “Some of [these women with school-age children] are the highest leaders within the institution… They have shown that you can. Anything’s attainable if you want it”. (URiM) |
| “Just showing that there’s someone who looks like me who’s in these [leadership] roles… Because I think [diversity in leadership] is something that we lack. They belong… this path is possible”. (non-URiM) |
Abbreviation: URiM, underrepresented in medicine.