Growing Practice Leaders Through Investments in Education and Mentorship

Recruiting nurses into management positions is a challenge across the health sector, however it can be particularly challenging within a mental health context. The challenges can be attributed to multiple factors including the demanding nature of the manager role that may not appeal to a younger generation of nurses (Gehrs et al, 2016; Moore et al 2016) and limited opportunities for leadership development. This was the context for our organization 5 years ago, where few nurses were returning to school for graduate degrees and it was difficult to recruit nurses into leadership positions. The challenge is often compounded by fiscal challenges that limit an organization’s ability to invest in professional development of individual nurses. Through advocacy with the foundation an opportunity emerged where a donor was willing to invest in nursing education over a 10 year period.

The presentation will describe our innovative initiative and approach to strategically growing nurse leaders within our specialty by first supporting nurses to obtain graduate education and subsequently providing further support the development of critical thinking and leadership competence and confidence through opportunities to apply the knowledge and skills gained in school to the organization through internships positions. While graduate education is a critical foundation for leadership, transition to advanced leadership roles requires intentional support through orientation, preceptorship, and mentorship (Giallonardo, 2011). The internships are strategically designed to match the candidates’ interest with current or emerging organizational need and support their growth through focused learning plans and mentorship. This allowed us to develop leaders in niche areas such as addictions nursing (Gehrs et al. 2016) and clinical informatics. The design and evaluation of the initiative is based on the ‘Mutual Benefits Model’ (Zey, 1991; Jakubik, 2012) which identifies the mentees, mentors, and the organization as stakeholders for positive outcomes.

We are halfway through our 10 year journey and the outcomes to date are extremely positive. The scholars mentees describe numerous opportunities within and outside the organization that help shape their leadership skills. Specifically the scholar mentees had opportunities to understand the broad and specific requirements of roles such as clinical nurse specialist, nurse, manager, quality improvement specialist, etc ; networking across the organization with other leaders and colleagues; observing, discussing, and mirroring a variety of leadership behaviors, and having a safe yet challenging space for reflection and dialogue with their mentors. Our findings for mentor benefits are consistent with what has been noted by others and include increased awareness of their own leadership style and further development of their leadership skills, improved networking skills, and enhanced opportunity for academic scholarship (Dearmon et al., 2015; Leggat et al., 2015). The organization has benefitted from retaining talented nurses and filling traditionally hard to fill leadership roles. The donors are pleased with the impact of their gift and the success has positively impacted on our foundation seek support for nurses through other gifts. The “buzz” created around the initiative has also strengthened the broader nursing community. The fact that many of our current scholars, interns, and new leaders started their careers as new graduates has not gone un-noticed and is positively impacting the organization as an inviting destination for aspiring mental health nurse leaders.

This topic is of relevance to any healthcare organization wanting to foster growth of nurses to advance practice and leadership. This presentation will be of interest to organizational leaders, managers, clinical nurse specialists, new nursing graduates, nursing graduate students and other stakeholders such as philanthropists interested in supporting nursing and its contribution to quality patient care.