Table 1 Selection criteria key definitions

Peer-reviewed original literature

Peer-reviewed journal articles reporting original research results (i.e. the data or analysis is new).

Leadership scales

A scale was considered to be a leadership scale if the entire scale purported to assess leadership, or if one domain within the scale purported to assess leadership.

Psychometric properties

A scale was considered to have had its reliability, validity, or acceptability assessed if the study tested at least one of the following psychometric properties of a leadership scale or leadership domain: face-validity, content validity, construct validity, criterion validity, internal consistency correlations between a measure’s subscales and/or total scale, test-retest reliability, responsiveness, and/or acceptability.

Health professionals

Practicing health professionals including the following: doctor, nurse, midwife, psychologist, pharmacist, dietician/nutritionist, dentist, physiotherapist, radiation therapist, paramedic, occupational therapist, social worker, or disability worker.