Becoming a nurse faculty leader: facing challenges through reflecting,persevering and relating in new ways

horton-deutsch s ., young p.k . & nelson k.a . (2010) Journal of Nursing Management 18, 487–493
Becoming a nurse faculty leader: facing challenges through reflecting, persevering and relating in new ways Aim The aim of the present study was to explore the experience of becoming a nurse faculty leader. Background In a recent interpretation of 23 interviews conducted with nurse faculty leaders from across the United States about their experiences of becoming a leader three themes were identified: being thrust into leadership, taking risks and facing challenges. Evaluation This interpretive phenomenological study further explicates three aspects of how nurse educators faced challenges in becoming and serving as a leader. Key issues Facing challenges meant reflecting, persevering through difficulties and learning to relate to others in new ways. Exemplars of participant experiences are provided for concreteness, to assist readers in determining how findings resonate with their own experience and how they can actualize this resonance in their own leadership practice. Conclusions In the present study, reflecting, persevering through difficulties and learning to relate with others in a new way was how leaders faced challenges. Implications for nursing management Leadership development opportunities that facilitate self-exploration, caring and thoughtful interactions with others and values clarification serve as the foundation for becoming a nurse faculty leader who is, in turn, able to build leadership capacity in other individuals and organizations.     

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: Taking risks by doing the right thing

Risk taking is a key aspect of academic leadership essential to meeting the challenges and opportunities in higher education. What are the practices of risk taking in nurse faculty leaders? This interpretive phenomenological study examines the experience and meaning of risk taking among nurse leaders. The theme of doing the right thing is brought forth through in-depth hermeneutic analysis of 14 individual interviews and two focus group narratives. The practice of doing the right thing is propelled and captured by leaders through a sense professional responsibility, visioning the future, and being true to self and follow one's core values. This study develops an evidence base for incorporating ways of doing the right thing in leadership development activities at a time when there is tremendous need for highly effective leaders in academic settings. Examining the practices of doing the right thing as a part of leadership development lays a foundation for building the next generation of nursing leaders prepared to navigate the ever-changing and complex academic and health care environments.     

Journey to become a nurse leader mentor: past,present and future influences

Mentorship, often viewed as a central capacity of leadership, is acknowledged as influential in growing nurse leaders. Mentoring relationships are perceived as empowering connections offering a dynamic guided experience to promote growth and development in personal and professional life. A hermeneutic phenomenological approach informed by Heidegger and Gadamer was used to explore understandings and experiences of mentorship for nurse leadership by 13 Australian nurse leaders. We found that learning and transformation associated with becoming a nurse leader mentor was experienced as an enduring evolutionary process. Participants' life journeys provided experiences that developed their understandings and established their personal identity as a leader and mentor. We considered the journey motif in terms of its inextricable connection with lived time and used Heidegger's ecstasies of temporality as a lens to understand how the temporal dimensions of past, present and future influenced and shaped the development of nurse leader mentors. We found that our temporal existence influences interpretation of ourselves and the world. Individuals can benefit from multiple separate mentoring interludes, with different mentors, over a lifetime. For some nurses, becoming a leader and mentor is a lifelong transformative process that grows from diverse experience and influential role modelling rather than formal instruction.     

Starting from a blank page: discovering and creating community health nursing in post-Soviet Latvia

Nurses discovering the practice and creating the tradition of community health nursing without mentors or forerunners have to learn from the practice itself and from each other. Data in the phenomenologic study of 17 Latvian community health nurses (CHNs) consisted of group and individual interviews and observation of practice with families. The focus of this article is the situated practice of nurses in the new role of primary care CHN, revealed through clinical stories that give voice to nurses in a particular historical and social context. The stories of the nurses in this article provide evidence of a growing ability to practice from a health promotion/prevention focus and engage with families and neighborhoods. The practice is still developing, and at this point nurses are not drawing on experience with families to identify and care for vulnerable populations.     

Esteemed connection: creating a mentoring relationship for nurse leadership

Mentoring relationships occur across a range of nursing contexts and are shown to have multiple, favourable personal and professional outcomes. Specifically, mentoring has been associated with the development of nurse leaders. This study describes features that are integral to initiating mentoring relationships that focus on nursing leader development. These significant features are addressed in relation to the nursing literature. Thirteen nurse leaders from eastern states of Australia were interviewed during 2005 and 2006 about their understanding and experiences of mentoring for leadership. Their narratives were analysed using a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology. Mentoring relationships for nurse leadership were revealed as developing from esteemed connections between two people. Mentors were shown to unconditionally champion their mentee's careers, and mentees were shown to possess a leadership vision for nursing. The findings of this study have implications for establishing mentoring relationships for nurse leader development. Consideration should be given to the specific focus and context of these relationships to ensure that the full potential of the mentoring process is realised. It is also important to better understand the key aspects that contribute to the phases of mentoring relationships for nurse leader development because they are shown to influence the dynamic and function of these relationships over time.     

The position of a leader nurse

Traditionally, nursing's leading role is considered as an indirect function, i.e. the professional function, which is aimed at nurse development rather than the patient. In contemporary medicine both therapeutic as well as nursing tasks are performed by a team rather than an individual, being it a doctor or a nurse, respectively. No teamwork can be effective without a leader; this is also true for good nursing in which the leadership is of a very special nature. The paper particularly concentrates on these characteristics of the nurse's leading role, which are related to the fact that the patient, according to the autonomy principle, is recognized as a central person in the therapeutic/nursing team.     

护理教育改革中对过程模式的分析与思考

分析了课程理论中影响比较大的过程模式产生的背景、其哲学和心理学基础、特点以及优缺点。用以对护理专业课程改革提供参考。     

Fostering civility in nursing education and practice: nurse leader perspectives

Incivility in healthcare can lead to unsafe working conditions, poor patient care, and increased medical costs. The authors discuss a study that examined factors that contribute to adverse working relationships between nursing education and practice, effective strategies to foster civility, essential skills to be taught in nursing education, and how education and practice can work together to foster civility in the profession.     

Leadership moments: Understanding nurse clinician-scientists' leadership as embedded sociohistorical practices

Nurse clinician-scientists are increasingly expected to show leadership aimed at transforming healthcare. However, research on nurse clinician-scientists' leadership (integrating researcher and practitioner roles) is scarce and hardly embedded in sociohistorical contexts. This study introduces leadership moments, that is, concrete events in practices that are perceived as acts of empowerment, in order to understand leadership in the daily work of newly appointed nurse clinician-scientists. Following the learning history method we gathered data using multiple (qualitative) methods to get close to their daily practices. A document analysis provided us with insight into the history of nursing science to illustrate how leadership moments in the everyday work of nurse clinician-scientists in the “here and now” can be related to the particular histories from which they emerged. A qualitative analysis led to three acts of empowerment: (1) becoming visible, (2) building networks, and (3) getting wired in. These acts are illustrated with three series of events in which nurse clinician-scientists' leadership becomes visible. This study contributes to a more socially embedded understanding of nursing leadership, enables us to get a grip on crucial leadership moments, and provides academic and practical starting points for strengthening nurse clinician-scientists' leadership practices. Transformations in healthcare call for transformed notions of leadership.     

Changes in nursing students' perceptions of nursing as they progress through their education

Nursing education has shifted from the biomedical approach towards using a human scientific model. At the same time, the traditional role of nurses has changed towards professionalism owing to the development of nursing science. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine Finnish nursing students' perceptions of nursing after 6, 18 and 30 months of education and at the end of the education programme. The sample consisted of 158 students selected by means of stratified sampling from six specialities in nursing. Data were collected with a questionnaire from 26 institutes. The summarized variables were based on factor analysis and analysed by one-way analysis of variance. The students had assimilated nursing as activity which promotes human health and well-being and is based on professionalism. The medical-technical model was not predominant at any phase of the education. The students of six specialities differed only slightly from each other. The students' development was congruent with the aims outlined in the curriculum.     

Mentoring in nursing education: An essential element in the retention of new nurse faculty

BackgroundMentoring in nursing education is essential to retaining nurse faculty; whether they are new to academia or experienced, but new to the institution in which they teach. Furthermore, mentoring promotes awareness of faculty roles and responsibilities, decreases ambiguity and increases retention of qualified nurse faculty.PurposeThis study examined whether there was a relationship between nurse educator mentor's perception of their mentoring effectiveness and nurse educator mentee's perception of their mentor's effectiveness.MethodA Spearman's rho correlation was conducted on a convenience sample of 119 nurse educators who completed the Principles of Adult Mentoring Inventory (PAMI), which measured six core mentoring behaviors. A secondary analysis using an independent samples t-test was also performed.ResultsStatistically significant results were revealed in two of the six mentoring behaviors; relationship emphasis (p = 0.035) and confrontive focus (p = 0.043). The Mentor Role Competency Profile (MRCP), a measure accompanying the PAMI, indicated concerns that could be counterproductive within the mentoring relationship. A secondary analysis using a t-test confirmed concerns as identified in the initial analysis.ConclusionContinuous improvement and training are critical to acquiring and reinforcing effective mentoring skills. Requiring evaluation and follow up for mentors could result in increased satisfaction for both mentor and mentee and improve retention of new faculty in academia.     

适应护士执业资格考试改革的高职护理教学实践与研究

为适应全国护士执业资格考试改革的要求,通过对2011年我国护士执业资格考试大纲的变化情况进行分析,结合我院高职护理教学及多年改革的实践,探讨新形势下如何提高护理教育教学质量,以促进护理教育的持续健康发展。     

On faculty incivility in nursing education: a conceptual model

Colaizzi's phenomenological method for qualitative study was used to describe nursing students' lived experiences with uncivil encounters with nursing faculty. Seven current and former nursing students from various levels of nursing education were interviewed to investigate their perceptions of faculty incivility in nursing education and to examine the emotional and behavioral impact the perceived incivility had on them. Three major themes emerged regarding faculty incivility: 1) behaving in demeaning and belittling ways, 2) treating students unfairly and subjectively, and 3) pressuring students to conform to unreasonable faculty demands. Three major themes emerged from students' emotional responses to faculty incivility: 1) feeling traumatized, 2) feeling powerless and helpless, and 3) feeling angry and upset. Behavioral responses are also reported. A conceptual model is presented to illustrate the findings. Recommendations for further research are included.     

Education leadership in the clinical health care setting: a framework for nursing education development

This paper describes how a new framework for clinical nursing education was introduced at Counties Manukau District Health Board (CMDHB), New Zealand. The project was initiated in response to the significant legislative and post registration nursing education changes within New Zealand. The journey of change has been a significant undertaking, and has required clear management, strong leadership, perseverance and understanding of the organisation's culture. The approach taken to managing the change had four stages, and reflects various change management models. The first stage, the identification process, identified the impetus for change. Creating the vision is the second stage and identified what the change would look like within the organisation. To ensure success and to guide the process of change a realistic and sustainable vision was developed. Implementing the vision was the third stage, and discusses the communication and pilot phase of implementing the nursing education framework. Stage four, embedding the vision, explores the process and experiences of changing an education culture and embedding the vision into an organisation. The paper concludes by discussing the importance of implementing robust, consistent, strategic and collaborative processes--that reflect and evaluate best educational nursing practice.