Designing a Leadership Curriculum for Otolaryngology Residents: A Mixed Methods Needs Assessment

•While surgeons need advanced leadership skills, residency programs focus on technical training.•Nontechnical skills are both crucial for patient outcomes and underemphasized.•Key training areas include leading change, team building, and managing difficult conversations.•Barriers to effective curriculum development include time constraints, resident buy-in, and diverse needs across residents. Perform a needs assessment for a novel leadership curriculum for otolaryngology residents. Cross-sectional, mixed-methods analysis. Academic medical center. To conduct the study, 37 OHNS faculty were surveyed, 23 (62%) of which submitted responses and 25 OHNS residents were surveyed, 19 (76%) of which responded. Surveys and semi-structured interviews were used to gather perspectives from residents and faculty. Quantitative survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney U tests. Two reviewers analyzed the qualitative interviews via thematic analysis. From 42 survey responses, 96% of faculty and 100% of residents expressed support for a leadership curriculum. Topics considered most important for the curriculum included managing difficult conversations, building and influencing teams and making constructive use of conflict. Significant differences between faculty and residents in topic ratings included wellness (p = 0.001), professionalism (p =