This guideline is intended to assist nurses and others performing both formal and informal nursing leadership roles from the point-of-care to the board room, across a variety of practice domains and settings. It identifies evidence-based leadership behavior that nurses can implement individually and collectively to benefit patients, healthcare team members, organizations, systems and healthcare policy, research and education. Leadership practices that help create a healthy work environment can ultimately improve patient and client experiences and outcomes.
This best practice guideline has been developed for nurses in a variety of roles, domains of practice and practice settings. It identifies and describes:
- leadership practices that result in healthy outcomes for patients/clients, organizations and systems;
- system resources that support effective leadership practices;
- organizational culture, values and resources that support effective leadership practices;
- personal resources that support effective leadership practices; and
- anticipated outcomes of effective nursing leadership.
This guideline addresses:
- knowledge, competencies and behavior of effective leaders, in both formal and informal nursing leadership roles;
- educational requirements and strategies that can be used by formal and informal nursing leaders;
- policy changes at both the organizational and system levels needed to support and sustain leadership practices, including those at the point of care;
- implementation strategies and tools;
- evaluation criteria and tools; and
- future research opportunities.