The Meaning of Self-Leadership for Nursing Academics in the Context of a Leadership Programme

Purpose: A leadership development programme was created in 2012 for ten nursing academics, to empower them in undertaking research projects, writing publications and to develop as leaders in a School of Nursing in the Western Cape. Over a two year period, since introduction of the programme, the participants in the programme made visible progress in taking the lead in academic and research activities in the School. It was however unclear how they experienced and understood the concept of self-leadership as a participant in the programme. The objectives of this study were to explore and describe the experiences of nurse leaders with regard to the meaning of self-leadership during a leadership development programme offered by a lead researcher at a School of Nursing.

Methods: Eight participants served as the study sample purposively selected for a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, and contextual study. Academics were between the ages of 28 and 57 years, and were lecturers in an undergraduate nursing programme. The data were collected by means of individual narratives over a period of a month. Open coding of data followed.

Results: Two main themes emerged from the data analysis, namely: leadership attributes and responsibilities towards the group. It was concluded that nursing academics were motivated to use their self-influence to direct themselves to achieve optimum performance in the programme. Self-leadership was regarded as an essential component of leadership and an integral aspect of the nursing academic’s role. The leadership development programme had a significant impact on the self-leadership of the group members. The nurse academics were interested in actualizing their responsibilities as individuals, the group itself and to the organisation at large.

Conclusion: The meaning that academics attached to self-leadership was in a broader manner closely related with group leadership according to the leadership framework of Jooste, linked to concepts of shared leadership, reflective leadership and collaborative leadership.

.