Advancing Healthcare through Courageous Leadership: UnitedHealth Group's Nurse Leader Executive Program

A primary goal of the Center for Nursing Advancement (CfNA) is the creation of a healthy work environment to enhance personal and professional development. Through courageous leadership responding to a critical need, the Nurse Leader Executive Program (NLEP) was launched to better prepare nurses for executive roles.

The Future of Nursing Report: Leading Change, Advancing Health further emphasizes the importance of better preparing nurses to lead transformative change in health care. But to do so, organizations need to provide support for and access to educational and personal development programs.

As such, the CfNA, in collaboration with the University of St. Thomas, first launched the NLEP two years ago to enhance nurse leaders’ executive mindset and prepare nurses to assume greater leadership roles in healthcare. Utilizing a retreat-style format, the program provides didactic and experiential learning in areas such as systems thinking, finance, change management, ethics, and executive communication. To support success, the CfNA covers all associated costs.

Each participant also receives 360º feedback at the beginning of the program, and again, following the one-year experience. Participants work on a strategically-aligned change initiative called a Leader Development Project aimed at applying what is learned in the classroom setting. Each nurse is also assigned a career sponsor responsible for ensuring that they are evaluated for promotion opportunities and continue to enjoy high visibility in the organization. This sponsorship also involves securing mentoring and coaching opportunities to further enable personal and professional growth.

Since inception, 12 company nurses have benefited from this unique development opportunity. Early feedback indicates that participants are assuming expanded responsibilities, receiving promotions, and positively impacting his or her work team. Through the high visibility of the program and the impact on creating leadership capacity in nurses, additional functional groups are evaluating how to replicate this very successful program.