Congruent leadership: values in action

Attributes, skills and actions of clinical leadership in nursing as reported by hospital nurses: a cross-sectional study

Background

Research shows a significant growth in clinical leadership from a nursing perspective; however, clinical leadership is still misunderstood in all clinical environments. Until now, clinical leaders were rarely seen in hospitals’ top management and leadership roles.

Purpose

This study surveyed the attributes and skills of clinical nursing leadership and the actions that effective clinical nursing leaders can do.

Methods

In 2020, a cross-sectional design was used in the current study using an online survey, with a non-random purposive sample of 296 registered nurses from teaching, public and private hospitals and areas of work in Jordan, yielding a 66% response rate. Data were analysed using descriptive analysis of frequency and central tendency measures, and comparisons were performed using independent t-tests.

Results

The sample consists mostly of junior nurses. The ‘most common’ attributes associated with clinical nursing leadership were effective communication, clinical competence, approachability, role model and support. The ‘least common’ attribute associated with clinical nursing leadership was ‘controlling’. The top-rated skills of clinical leaders were having a strong moral character, knowing right and wrong and acting appropriately. Leading change and service improvement were clinical leaders’ top-rated actions. An independent t-test on key variables revealed substantial differences between male and female nurses regarding the actions and skills of effective clinical nursing leadership.

Conclusions

The current study looked at clinical leadership in Jordan’s healthcare system, focusing on the role of gender in clinical nursing leadership. The findings advocate for clinical leadership by nurses as an essential element of value-based practice, and they influence innovation and change. As clinical leaders in various hospitals and healthcare settings, more empirical work is needed to build on clinical nursing in general and the attributes, skills and actions of clinical nursing leadership of nursing leaders and nurses.

'Guiding Lights for effective workplace cultures': enhancing the care environment for staff and patients in older people's care settings

While much attention has been given to organisational culture, there has been less focus on workplace culture. Yet workplace culture strongly influences the way care is delivered, received and experienced. An effective workplace culture is crucial for the well-being of individual staff members and teams as well as for patients' experiences and outcomes of care. This article describes the 'Guiding Lights for effective workplace cultures' which were developed by the authors and provide a framework to assist in understanding and promoting effective workplace cultures and creating environments where staff and patients feel safe and valued. There are four Guiding Lights: 'collective leadership', 'living shared values', 'safe, critical, creative learning environments' and 'change for good that makes a difference'. Each one articulates what good workplace cultures are through descriptors and intermediate outcomes and together produce a set of ultimate outcomes. The Guiding Lights provide nurses working in older people's care settings with an opportunity to learn from, and celebrate, what is going well in their workplaces and to consider areas that require further development.

Exploring clinical leadership in long-term care: An integrative literature review

AIM

The aim of this study is to understand the concept of clinical leadership and clinical leadership development for nurses working with older adults in long-term care health care facilities.

BACKGROUND

In Canada, clinical care within long-term care is undertaken by registered nurses and licenced practical nurses working with health care aides. Effective clinical leadership is essential for providing quality nursing care.

EVALUATION

An integrative literature review using the framework of Whittemore and Knafl (2005). All selected articles were quality appraised using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program and the accuracy, authority, coverage, objectivity, date and significance checklist.

KEY ISSUES

The analysis resulted in four themes: ambiguous definitions, practice-based and value-driven care, the impact of clinical leadership and clinical leadership development for Canadian nurses.

CONCLUSION

The findings suggest that ambiguity surrounds the concept of clinical leadership, with the term denoting both 'management' as a formal administrative role and 'leadership' in general. More recently, the clinical leadership focus has been on informal leadership by nurses at the bedside, where personal and professional values align with clinical action.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Effective clinical leadership can have a positive impact on quality care and employee job satisfaction.

Reflections on leadership in advanced and consultant radiographic practice within the UK

INTRODUCTION

This Educational Perspective provides an overview of how leadership fits into advanced and consultant radiographic roles within the UK setting. It draws on research in the area as well as reviewing some of the wider healthcare literature beyond the medical radiation sciences. The reflections outlined suggest how leadership at these levels may look and differ in practice.

DISCUSSION

Leadership should be seen as fundamental to practice and not necessarily a discreet element to either role, but one that supports all other areas. The proportion of the role that leadership takes up, along with the degree of influence, increases from advanced to consultant practice. Consideration over conflict with management and leadership within roles is also important. Ultimately leadership is about relationships with people, for which interpersonal skills are required, along with establishing networks, supported by training and development to maximise effectiveness.

CONCLUSION

A clearer understanding of leadership is needed to help conceptualise and measure its impact at advanced and consultant levels of practice. The content is intended to provide an opportunity for reflection and discussion around the topic, serving as a development tool in practice.

Leadership self-perception of clinical nurses at the bedside: A qualitative descriptive study

AIM & OBJECTIVE

Explore leadership self-perception of clinical nurses at the bedside and their perception of leadership on patient care and outcomes.

BACKGROUND

According to Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing Report, nurses are called to exhibit leadership at every level. Published research on nursing leadership is primarily focused on formal leaders. Research examining leadership at the clinical nurse level has either tested application of a particular leadership model or studied nurses who have been identified as informal clinical leaders. We took an inductive approach without any prior knowledge if participating clinical nurses viewed themselves as leaders.

DESIGN

Descriptive qualitative method was used.

METHODS

Four focus groups were conducted with a total of 20 clinical nurses from 2 hospitals within an integrated health system using a convenience sampling method until saturation was reached. The Consolidated criteria for Reporting Qualitative research (COREQ) was used to report findings.

RESULTS

All participants identified qualities they admired in leaders. Fifty percent did not initially view themselves as leaders until they realised that they often demonstrated those same leadership qualities in providing nursing care to patients and families. Participants struggled to make a connection between their leadership at the bedside and patient outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

Clinical nurses assume a formal title is required to be a leader. Findings from this study imply that leadership attributes required at point of care are embedded in the nursing practice and look similar to servant leadership.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Leadership is in the nature of nursing practice, and more work is required to increase awareness that every nurse is a leader. Further efforts need to be pursued to help clinical nurses become self-aware they are leaders in order to impact patient outcomes and transform health care from bottom-up and inside-out.

Nursing and values-based leadership: A literature review

AIM

To explore literature that supports an understanding of values-based leadership in nursing.

BACKGROUND

Understanding values-based leadership in nursing means understanding several leadership theories such as authentic, servant and congruent leadership.

EVALUATION

Electronic databases were systematically searched to locate studies with the terms values-based, authentic, servant and congruent leadership. The literature was assessed with the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tools and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and meta-analysis approach and a thematic analysis.

KEY ISSUES

Existing evidence focuses on specific perspectives within three dominant leadership approaches under the umbrella of values-based leadership: authentic, servant and congruent leadership. Limited literature suggests that values-based leadership can support professional collaboration, enhanced trust and voice for nurses, support for staff well-being, empowerment, job satisfaction, patient-focused outcomes and quality care.

CONCLUSIONS

A dearth of empirical literature concerning values-based leadership and nursing exists. Evidence suggests that authentic, servant and congruent leadership correlate with values-based leadership theories and core nursing values.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Nurse managers should recognize the potential benefits of a values-based leadership approach for staff well-being, enhanced professional collaboration and the nurses voice, improved insight into clinical leadership attributes and improvements in quality patient care.

Leadership in Dental Practice: a Three Stage Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis

OBJECTIVES

To review leadership for dentists in patient facing, primary care dental practice.

METHODS

A three stage systematic review with narrative synthesis included stage 1: a scoping overview of management and leadership policy context; stage 2: systematic review of review of leadership in healthcare; and stage 3: systematic focused review of leadership in patient-facing dental practice.

RESULTS

The healthcare literature mirrors the generic literature in relation to the temporal evolution of leadership theories. Policy papers influence healthcare literature, though these are generally written by independent bodies, link solely to medical publications, and are often commissioned from the grand strategic level thereby grounding them in a politicised system. The healthcare leadership literature offers few studies at the operational (patient care) level of leadership, with none of these focused explicitly on dentistry and dental practice. Numerous aims, definitions, models, conceptualisations, and links to theories of leadership are reported. The stage 1 literature demonstrates more contemporaneous ideas of leadership, while the dental practice literature is too often grounded in outdated concepts and theories.

CONCLUSIONS

The overarching trend is from leaders to leadership; with no unified definition, model, theory, concept nor aim recognised. The fundamental importance of specific context and the reaction of others to leadership is reinforced. Leadership theories aligned to healthcare include Engaging, Authentic, Collective and the Transformational-Transactional continuum. Leadership is a dynamic, socially constructed process, only occurring in a group setting. Consisting of multiple moderating variables that demonstrate reciprocal influence on one another, these influences are neither equal nor stable. (246 words) CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Leadership is embedded in regulatory guidance and standards relating to general dental practice. It is therefore crucial to have an evidenced based understanding of what leadership means in this context, and what further work is necessary to support clinicians in the leadership domain.

[Clarification of the concept of nursing leadership and its different forms]

France needs to meet numerous public health challenges and maintain universal cover for its population. It is nevertheless surprising to observe that the development of nursing leadership, which is an effective strategy in numerous other countries, is not a priority in France. Faced with this observation, it is important to clarify this concept with the help of extensive foreign scientific literature in order to envisage how its practice can be boosted with the aim of obtaining similar benefits to those evaluated in other national contexts.

Clinical leadership and rural and remote practice: A qualitative study

AIM

To explore how clinical leadership is perceived by nurses in rural and remote areas of New South Wales, Australia.

BACKGROUND

There are few empirical studies aimed at understanding clinical leadership from a rural and remote perspective.

METHODS

A qualitative approach, based on interpretive phenomenology, used thematic analysis of recorded and transcribed interviews. Ethical approval was secured, 56 interviews were undertaken, across 14 different rural and remote health facilities, with nurses across the spectrum of practice.

RESULTS

Thematic analysis led to five themes and findings that support an understanding of clinical leadership from a rural and remote context. Clinical leaders were seen to considerably impact on the initiation of change and quality of care. They also faced barriers if the health facility was poorly staffed, lacked support and if the community were strongly co-dependent.

CONCLUSION

In rural and remote areas, clinical leadership is evident to support change, innovation and care quality.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Managers should be aware that staff shortages and challenges to staff retention or the initiation of change are affected by poor clinical leadership. This paper suggests that managers who facilitate clinical leadership are better able to support professional education and greater efficiencies in the delivery of quality health care.

Transitando hacia el ejercicio de autonomía y liderazgo: … «para el posicionamiento hay que luchar»

Introducción: En Chile, las enfermeras/os tienen respaldo legal para gestionar el cuidado, esto facilita el desarrollo de competencias para ejercer autonomía y liderazgo. Actualmente persisten barreras para transitar hacia un reconocimiento real de la independencia profesional. Objetivo: Develar la experiencia vivida de enfermeras con cargos en niveles de jefatura respecto al propio desarrollo para lograr el liderazgo y autonomía profesional. Metodología: Estudio cualitativo descriptivo-interpretativo, desde la trayectoria fenomenológica de Edmund Husserl. Muestreo selectivo de caso homogéneo de tres enfermeras que desempeñaban rol de jefatura en instituciones de salud, región Valparaíso, Chile. Participación consentida. Entrevista no estructurada. Análisis del discurso utilizando el modelo de liderazgo integral de Ken Wilber. Resultados: Categorías: Conciencia del líder «ser inquieta...intelectualmente». Construyendo competencias «el liderazgo se aprende». Transitando hacia el ejercicio de la autonomía y el liderazgo, “para el posicionamiento hay que luchar”. El peso de las estructuras organizacionales «tu rol es parte de un hospital». Interpretación: El eEjercicio del liderazgo y la autonomía se fundamenta en competencias actitudinales por sobre las cognitivas y técnicas. Existe mayor apoyo y reconocimiento a nivel institucional, que al interior del equipo de salud. Persisten limitaciones para lograr máxima expresión del liderazgo y autonomía, por persistencia de modelos institucionales hegemónicos, centrados en decisiones médicas y desconocimiento del rol integrado. Conclusión: El líder se mueve en un escenario dual, entre un menor reconocimiento del equipo y un creciente empoderamiento del rol autónomo y visibilidad a nivel directivo institucional.

Emergence of informal clinical leadership as a catalyst for improving patient care quality and job satisfaction

AIMS

To analyse the critical attributes of clinical leadership and test a model linking clinical leadership behaviours of staff nurses to patient care quality and job satisfaction.

BACKGROUND

Research has historically proclaimed the beneficial effects of clinical leadership for optimizing care and improving patient outcomes. Few studies, however, have assessed the influence of clinical leadership at the staff nurse level and empirically tested the concept.

DESIGN

A predictive cross-sectional design was used in this study.

METHODS

Data were collected during January 2016 using a survey questionnaire. A random sample of Registered nurses working in direct care positions in acute care hospitals was surveyed. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling in the analysis of a moment structures software.

RESULTS

Nurses reported higher levels of clinical leadership skills in their practice. Staff nurses' use of clinical leadership behaviours directly and positively influenced the quality of care they given to patients and their satisfaction in the workplace.

CONCLUSION

The findings indicate that informal leadership at the clinical level may be an underused asset in health care and if identified and developed, staff nurse clinical leaders have potential to improve the delivery of patient care and may offer a tangible solution to the patient safety conundrum.

The Staff Nurse Clinical Leader at the Bedside: Swedish Registered Nurses' Perceptions

Registered nurses at the bedside are accountable for and oversee completion of patient care as well as directly leading and managing the provision of safe patient care. These nurses have an informal leadership role that is not associated with any given position. Leadership is a complex and multifaceted concept and its meaning is unclear, especially in the staff nurse context. The aim was to describe registered nurses' perceptions of what it entails to be the leader at the bedside in inpatient physical care. A phenomenographic approach was employed. Interviews were performed with Swedish registered nurses (n = 15). Five descriptive categories were identified: demonstrating clinical knowledge, establishing a good atmosphere of collaboration, consciously structuring the work in order to ensure patients' best possible nursing care, customized presence in the practical work with patients according to predetermined prerequisites, and monitoring coworkers' professional practice. Registered nurses informal role as leader necessitates a social process of deliberate effort to attain and maintain leader status and authority. Participants used deliberate communicative approaches and interactive procedures. Leader principles grounded in the core values of the nursing profession that ensure nursing values and person-centered attributes were a key aspect.

Enabling professional development in mental health nursing: the role of clinical leadership

Clinical leadership is acknowledged as important to the nursing profession. While studies continue to identify its significance in contributing to positive outcomes for consumers, the role that clinical leadership has in enabling and supporting professional development in mental health nursing is poorly understood. This study utilized a grounded theory methodology to explore the characteristics clinicians consider important for clinical leadership and its significance for mental health nursing in day-to-day clinical practice. Individual face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nurses working in mental health settings. Participants described the important role that clinical leaders play in enabling professional development of others through role modelling and clinical teaching. They describe how nurses, whom they perceive as clinical leaders, use role modelling and clinical teaching to influence the professional development of nursing staff and undergraduate nursing students. Attributes such as professionalism and honesty were seen, by participants, as enablers for clinical leaders in effectively and positively supporting the professional development of junior staff and undergraduate nurses in mental health nursing. This paper examines clinical leadership from the perspective of mental health nurses delivering care, and highlights the important role of clinical leaders in supporting professional development in mental health nursing.

Distilling the Antecedents and Enabling Dynamics of Leader Moral Courage: A Framework to Guide Action

Intelligent, robust and courageous nursing leadership is essential in all areas of nursing, including mental health. However, in the nursing leadership literature, the theoretical discourse regarding how leaders recognise the need for action and make the choice to act with moral purpose is currently limited. Little has been written about the cognitions, capabilities and contextual factors that enable leader courage. In particular, the interplay between leader values and actions that are characterised as good or moral remains underexplored in the nursing leadership literature. In this article, through a discursive literature synthesis we seek to distill a more detailed understanding of leader moral courage; specifically, what factors contribute to leaders' ability to act with moral courage, what factors impede such action, and what factors do leaders need to foster within themselves and others to enable action that is driven by moral courage. From the analysis, we distilled a multi-level framework that identifies a range of individual characteristics and capabilities, and enabling contextual factors that underpin leader moral courage. The framework suggests leader moral courage is more complex than often posited in theories of leadership, as it comprises elements that shape moral thought and conduct. Given the complexity and challenges of nursing work, the framework for moral action derived from our analysis provides insight and suggestions for strengthening individual and group capacity to assist nurse leaders and mental health nurses to act with integrity and courage.

Aesthetic Leadership: Its Place in the Clinical Nursing World

Clinical leadership has been identified as crucial to positive patient/client outcomes, across all clinical settings. In the new millennium, transformational leadership has been the dominant leadership style and in more recent times, congruent leadership theory has emerged to explain clinical leadership in nursing. This article discusses these two leadership models and identifies some of the shortcomings of them as models for clinical leadership in nursing. As a way of overcoming some of these limitations, aesthetic leadership is proposed as a style of leadership that is not antithetical to either model and reflects nursing's recognition of the validity of art and aesthetics to nursing generally. Aesthetic leadership is also proposed as a way to identify an expert clinical leader from a less experienced clinical leader, taking a similar approach to the way Benner (1984) has theorised in her staging of novice to expert clinical nurse.

The importance of communication for clinical leaders in mental health nursing: the perspective of nurses working in mental health

Communication has been identified as an important attribute of clinical leadership in nursing. However, there is a paucity of research on its relevance in mental health nursing. This article presents the findings of a grounded theory informed study exploring the attributes and characteristics required for effective clinical leadership in mental health nursing, specifically the views of nurses working in mental health about the importance of effective communication in day to day clinical leadership. In-depth interviews were conducted to gain insight into the participants' experiences and views on clinical leadership in mental health nursing. The data that emerged from these interviews were constantly compared and reviewed, ensuring that any themes that emerged were based on the participants' own experiences and views. Participants recognized that effective communication was one of the attributes of effective clinical leadership and they considered communication as essential for successful working relationships and improved learning experiences for junior staff and students in mental health nursing. Four main themes emerged: choice of language; relationships; nonverbal communication, and listening and relevance. Participants identified that clinical leadership in mental health nursing requires effective communication skills, which enables the development of effective working relationships with others that allows them to contribute to the retention of staff, improved outcomes for clients, and the development of the profession.

Motivations, contradictions and ambiguities in the leadership of nurses in management positions in a university hospital

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the contradictions and ambiguities which permeate nurses' motivation for exercising leadership in management positions, in a university hospital. METHOD: this study has a qualitative approach and is exploratory and descriptive, and used a total of 33 semi-structured interviews which were submitted to thematic analysis. RESULTS: the information converged on five categories: Motivation to take on a management position; The view of nursing managers on the exercising of leadership; The emblematic aspect of working with people; Leadership in nursing - mediatory and conciliatory; Time: a dilemma between managing and caring. CONCLUSION: leading people can be both a great encouragement, and an impeding aspect, bearing in mind the nuances of teamwork and the complexity of the context in which this process is constructed. In addition to this, conciliatory and mediatory attitudes are shown to be fundamental for a healthy and productive organizational atmosphere; however, the lack of time was indicated as a dilemma between managing and caring.

[The social representations of the process of choosing leaders in the perspective of the nursing team]

This exploratory-descriptive, qualitative study was performed with the objective to analyze the social representation of the process of choosing leaders among nursing workers of a university hospital. The information was obtained through free word association and open interviews. For the purposes of this study, thematic content analysis was performed, guided by the Social Representations Theory. Through this focus the following category emerged: division of the nursing team - the input and output of the process of choosing leaders. The category consists of a crystallization of the social representation of the subject, anchored in elements related to leadership, impartiality, change, knowledge, trust and humanization. The idea of leadership is highlighted as inducing a movement in the division of the team as it is associated with the process of choosing leaders for an environment of communication, suitable for integrating the team and recognizing potential leaders.

Clinical leadership characteristics confirmed

Aims

This paper compares the results of two studies conducted by the same researcher into the attributes and characteristics of clinical leaders.

Background

The two studies used an almost identical questionnaire; however, they were conducted 6 years apart, in different counties, with different health care staff (nurses and paramedics), made up of very different gender ratios. The initial study was larger and focused on more than describing clinical leader attributes; however, this was the principle focus of the second study.

Findings

The findings from both studies offer very similar results and describe clear insights into the attributes health professionals seek in clinical leaders. The research findings are remarkably similar given the differences in professional group, gender variations, country differences and time span.

Conclusions

Leaders are followed because there is a match between the leaders values and beliefs and their actions. People identify with the leaders values and follow them if they are reflected in the leaders’ actions. Clinical leader characteristics are approachability, clinical competence, being supportive, acting as mentors or role models, being visible in practice, directing and helping people, inspiring confidence, having effective communication skills and behaving with integrity. Vision and creativity were less evidently sought or identified as a clinical leader characteristic.

Professional excellence and career advancement in nursing: a conceptual framework for clinical leadership development

Increasingly, stakeholders in the health care community are recognizing nursing as key to solving the nation's health care issues. This acknowledgment provides a unique opportunity for nursing to demonstrate leadership by developing clinical nurse leaders to collaborate with the multidisciplinary care team in driving evidence-based, safe quality, cost-effective health care services. One approach for nursing success is standardizing the entry-level education for nurses and developing a uniform professional development and career advancement trajectory with appropriate incentives to encourage participation. A framework to guide and provide scientific evidence of how frontline nurses can be engaged will be paramount. The model for professional excellence and career advancement provides a framework that offers a clear path for researchers to examine variables influencing nurses' professional development and career advancement in a systematic manner. Professional Excellence and Career Advancement in Nursing underscores professional preparedness of a registered nurse as central to leadership development. It also describes the elements that influence nurses' participation in professional development and career advancement under 4 main categories emphasizing mentorship and self-efficacy as essential variables.

Exploring leadership in community nursing teams

AIMS

This article is a report on a study investigating how leadership is perceived in community nursing teams and how these perceptions are translated into working practices of team leaders.

BACKGROUND

The consensus in community nursing literature is that leadership is important, and especially so in a time of change. However, little empirical evidence exists on how leadership works in practice.

METHOD

The study adopted an exploratory descriptive design, utilising individual semi-structured interviews and focus groups in four case-studies, with a total of 54 participants. Two case-studies focussed on district nursing teams and two involved public health nursing teams, located in two geographical areas. Participants debated their understanding of the concept of leadership, its associated practices and behaviours in teams, if they saw themselves as leaders, and what preparation was required. The study was undertaken in 2009. Framework analysis techniques were employed to analyse the data.

FINDINGS

A 'quasi-family' model of leadership emerged, with significant emphasis on the importance of personal relationships and support. Nursing grade had a greater impact on perceptions of leadership than geographical context or professional and clinical focus.

CONCLUSION

No clear fit with any existing theoretical framework was identified. However, nurses in the highest grade banding, in particular, demonstrated practices associated with transformational leadership. Nurses expressed the very clear need to be acknowledged, respected and valued, and that those who provided this support were regarded as good leaders.

Boundary matters: clinical leadership and the distinctive disciplinary contribution of nursing to multidisciplinary care

AIMS

To describe Irish nurses' views of clinical leadership and to describe their clinical leadership development needs.

BACKGROUND

Nurses are often unclear about the precise nature of clinical leadership and its impact on the processes and outcomes of care and little is known about their self-perceived clinical leadership development needs.

DESIGN

Seventeen focus group interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 144 nurses from 13 practice settings. A conceptual lens was provided by the work of Bernstein and Young who emphasise the epistemological, practical and relational significance of boundaries and how they relate in fundamental ways to professionals' sense of their distinctive disciplinary identities and membership of specialised communities of practice.

METHODS

Focus group data were collected using semi-structured topic guides. Analysis was facilitated by NVivo 7© and interpretation was informed by a conceptual framework arising from the interplay of emerging themes and the literature review.

RESULTS

The implications for clinical leadership development of two critical concepts, 'representing nursing' and 'compensatory action', are discussed in detail.

CONCLUSIONS

Clinical leadership development should emphasise the development of all nurses as clinical leaders in the context of the delineation, clarification and articulation of their distinctive contribution in multidisciplinary care settings.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Clinical leaders are recognised as practice experts and as leaders in their particular fields. Recognition and influence in and beyond the immediate context of care depends greatly on their ability to articulate the distinct nursing contribution to patient care. This ability provides an essential resource to resist the ongoing blurring, effacement and dilution of nurses' roles.

Multigenerational workforce issues and their implications for leadership in nursing

AIM(S)

With many countries facing current or impending nursing shortages, considering the impact of the multigenerational workforce, their needs and behaviours may impact on efforts to recruit and retain nurses.

BACKGROUND

As the nursing workforce changes, with ageing nurses, an increased demand for nursing care and an ageing population, greater emphasis is placed on an understanding of the workforce's needs and the differences highlighted by various generational groups.

EVALUATION

Offered is a literature review and definitions of the four different generational groups evident in the current nursing workforce. These are offered as an insight into the different needs and attitudes that multigenerational groups bring to the nursing workforce.

KEY ISSUE(S)

Making the most of the multigenerational workforce and offering recommendations for meeting their unique challenges.

CONCLUSIONS

Understanding the different generational groups may allow nursing leaders and managers to consider what drives, motivates or hinders nurses from different generations.

IMPLICATIONS

Recruiting and retaining a workforce increasingly made up of nurses from many generational groups is a challenge that can be tackled with a deeper understanding of each of the commonly identified generational groups.

Leadership in Nursing: Analysis of the Process of Choosing The Heads

The process of choosing heads can be strategic to achieve desired results in nursing care. This study presents an exploratory and descriptive research that aims to analyze the process of choosing heads for the ward, in the nursing area of a teaching hospital in Porto Alegre. Data was collected from registered nurses, technicians and nursing auxiliaries through a semi-structured interview technique and free choice of words. Three theme categories emerged from content analysis: process of choosing heads, managerial competences of the head-to-be and team articulation. Leadership was the word most frequently associated with the process of choosing heads. The consultation process for the choice of the leader also contributes to the success of the manager, as it makes the team members feel co-responsible for the results achieved and legitimizes the head-to-be in their group.

Learning With Leaders

This column focuses on ideas concerning leaders and leadership. The author proposes that leadership is about showing up and participating with others in doing something. “Mandela: His 8 Lessons of Leadership” by Richard Stengel is explored in light of selected philosophical writings, literature on nursing leadership, and nurse theorist Rosemarie Rizzo Parse's humanbecoming leading-following model. Teaching-learning questions are then posed to stimulate further reflection on the lessons of leadership.