Transitioning Expert Nurse Clinicians Into Strong Nurse Leaders With an Evidence-Based Leadership Development Program

Well documented workforce predictions indicate that there will be significant nurse manager vacancies in the next two to five years due to a retiring workforce, promotions, or leaders who are stepping out of leadership roles. This staggering prediction should call for immediate action for organizations to implement leadership succession planning initiatives so that strong, competent nurse leaders can feel prepared to fill these vacant roles. The purpose of this project is to address the upcoming nurse manager shortage by providing intentional leadership support to develop and grow nurses who are currently acting in a mid-level nurse leader role. This will be accomplished by implementing an evidence-based nurse leadership program that aligns with the nurse manager learning domain framework developed through the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) (2018a). This framework focuses on three domains of leadership: The Science: managing the business, The Art: leading the people, and The Leader Within: creating the leader within yourself (AONE, 2018a).

A strong nurse leader program will serve many purposes but there are some purposeful goals of this program. A few of the goals of this program are for nurses to feel competent in their current role, to serve as a smooth transition into a nurse manager position, and to build a healthy pipeline of competent nurse leaders in the future. These are goals that are vital to create and sustain a healthy workforce as well as for nurses to delivery high quality patient care.

The design of this project was to invite all nurses, who serve in a Team Coordinator role, to participate in a six-month leadership development program called, Nurse Leader Program. Team Coordinators serve in a dual role of providing direct patient care as well as assuming a leadership role on their respective nursing unit. All Team Coordinators were invited to participate in this program and it was 100% voluntary. The program curriculum was aligned with the nurse manager domain framework. At the beginning of the first program, all participants completed a demographics questionnaire as well as a nurse manager competency assessment which is an online tool available through the American Organization of Nurse Executives (2018b). This assessment was given on the first day of the program and will be given again at the mid-point of the program and, finally, at the end of the final session.

Collaboratively, AONE has agreed to send the primary researcher all individual, de-identified data in order to assess competency throughout this leadership program. In addition, de-identified, individual class evaluations are given at the end of each session. These tools will serve as indictors if the Nurse Leader Program supported and developed leadership competencies.

As history continue to repeat itself in regard to moving talented, direct patient care nurses into formal leadership roles without leadership training, the literature suggests that there is value to leadership curriculum to serve as pipeline for future nurse managers (Sherman, Saifman, 2018). From the evidence researched, there are findings that successful leadership programs, intended to develop and grow future nurse leaders, prove beneficial for nurse manager succession planning and retention. Through educational leadership residencies, studies reinforce that providing leadership development may result in strong, committed leaders who will continue to lead healthcare organizations (Watkins et al., 2014). The literature supports the importance for organizations to have a healthy pipeline of nurse leaders to build support for healthy work environments, increase nurse satisfaction and quality patient outcomes (Titer et al., 2014).