Organizations are recommended to encourage leaders and staff at all levels to continually strive to develop their leadership skills and competencies. Doing so increases current leaders’ ability to lead effectively as well as allows future leaders to grow into the pipeline. Some considerations to adopting this strategy include:

• Strategic succession planning (1)
• Identify and train the desired skills and styles (1)
• Ongoing mentoring and coaching  (1,2,3)
• Refresher training as planned development (4)
• Shift desired competencies with industry changes, when relevant (5)
• Relationship building (1,2)
• Use simulation and other modalities in training (3)
• Offer financial support to staff for degree advancement (3)
• Collect qualitative and quantitative data to measure return on investment (3)

Leaders at all levels should be aware of their leadership characteristics and how others are impacted by their decisions. Relational leadership styles (transformational, authentic, servant, and ethical leadership) have shown better outcomes in healthcare settings in fostering healthy work environments, job satisfaction, and retention. Safety-specific transformational leadership was shown to increase psychological well-being for high-risk occupations, including healthcare. (2,4,6,7)

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References:

1. Medeiros, M. (2022, June). Nurse manager succession planning for unit health and well-being. Nursing Management, 53(6), 41–43. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.numa.0000831436.38442.a8
2. Markey, K., Ventura, C. A. A., Donnell, C. O., & Doody, O. (2020, November 6). Cultivating ethical leadership in the recovery of COVID‐19. Journal of Nursing Management, 29(2), 351–355. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13191
3. Warshawsky, N. E., Caramanica, L., & Cramer, E. (2020, April 9). Organizational Support for Nurse Manager Role Transition and Onboarding. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 50(5), 254–260. https://doi.org/10.1097/nna.0000000000000880
4. Sihvola, S., Kvist, T., & Nurmeksela, A. (2022, May 2). Nurse leaders’ resilience and their role in supporting nurses’ resilience during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A scoping review. Journal of Nursing Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13640
5. Bernard, N. (2019, February). Resilience and Professional Joy: A Toolkit for Nurse Leaders. Nurse Leader, 17(1), 43–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2018.09.007
6. Irshad, M., Majeed, M., & Khattak, S. A. (2021, June 21). The Combined Effect of Safety Specific Transformational Leadership and Safety Consciousness on Psychological Well-Being of Healthcare Workers. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.688463
7. Xu, J. M., Stark, A. T., Ying, B. H., Lian, Z. M., Huang, Y. S., & Chen, R. M. (2022, June 13). Nurses’ Workplace Social Capital and the Influence of Transformational Leadership: A Theoretical Perspective. Frontiers in Public Health, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.855278