Leadership Development: Empowering Future Nurse Leaders to Catalyze Positive Change

Nurses serve as leaders in many settings including academia, clinical settings, and research arenas. To effectively lead, it is important to seek out opportunities to evaluate current and to develop future strategies that they can utilize to positively impact their stakeholders and their organizations. Through a discussion of case studies, the presenter will walk participants through ways current and future nurse leaders can develop and improve their leadership skills. Dweck's work about fixed and growth mindsets will be highlighted. It is important for leaders to explore different leadership frameworks. Servant leadership and transformational leadership are two frameworks commonly seen in health care organizations and academia. Often a personal leadership framework is chosen by participating in a leadership development program. Sigma offers several leadership academies as do other nursing organizations. One important part of many leadership development programs is completing a self-assessment at the beginning of the program, midway through the program, and at the end of the program. Leaders who are not participants in formal programs can explore assessment options that are available. Self-reflection is one of the topics that is at the forefront of leadership development as well as education. There is a growing body of literature about including self-reflection when developing programs for students and employees, and it is also crucial for those in leadership roles to complete activities that require self-reflection. Horton-Deutsch & Sherwood's work about reflective practices in nursing education will be presented. Another pillar of developing leaders is mentoring and coaching. Many organizations have mentors and coaches for employees usually with a focus on new employees. Having mentors for established leaders to help them to continue to find enthusiasm and motivation for their work could be very impactful. Evaluation of leaders is often a topic that is often not transparent; making the evaluation of leaders more transparent could help them to gain feedback that could improve their performance in their organizations. Brene Brown's work will about optimism and facing challenges will be highlighted.