Developing Nursing Leadership Competencies in Baccalaureate Undergraduate Students

Leadership and followership competencies are a critical competency for nurses. Facilitating the development of these competencies in students is essential to ensure their successful transition into a registered nursing role. Students and nurses demonstrate these competencies through the use of communication strategies that are embedded within a relational practice. Health care professionals, regardless of formal position, need to assert their opinions and perspectives using a communication style that demonstrates value of all team members in open discussions about quality patient care, appropriate access, and stewardship.  Challenges to effective communication and relational practice are the individual and organizational patterns of behaviour, and the subsequent impact that these behaviours have on others.  Several strategies have been used to help students develop confidence in using their relational communication skills. Changes to the course were based on the result of quality improvement activities. As a result low-fidelity simulations are now used to help students garner situational awareness when they conduct a critical analysis of individual, team, and organizational functioning, and then use this information and evidence gained from a critical literature review to develop recommendations to improve individual, team, and/or organizational performance. Additionally the leadership and followership simulation exercises, inclusive of public feedback and debriefing, are used as a pedagogical/andragogical strategy in a nursing baccalaureate senior leadership course to facilitate learning of team communication skills and improve situational awareness. We view this strategy as an alternative to traditional classroom learning activities which provide little opportunity for recursive learning.