Developing as a Clinical Nurse Leader: A grounded theory study

Leadership ranks among one of the highest researched and debated topics in the social sciences. However, despite the large volume of scholarship on the topic, leadership and in particular leadership development within nursing practice, is not well understood. Leadership in nursing plays an important role in quality of patient care and is a driver for change, shaping the future of nursing. There is a need to ensure that leadership learning is integrated into an organisational culture.

Maximising opportunities in practice to learn to lead successfully are dependent on making the processes of leadership learning visible. Learning to become a Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) is a complex dynamic social process.

To comprehend how CNLs have learned to lead in practice in an acute care context, a grounded theory study was utilized. Grounded theory as an approach is particularly suitable for developing a sensitive understanding of this process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to enable the collection of in-depth data of naturalistic learning.

Results of this study indicate that the recognition of the impact of significant people, optimizing staff relationships, understanding through readings/courses and bringing in the personae are core to nursing leadership development. Most participants articulated an awareness of learning, resulting in the acquisition and implementation of new knowledge and more importantly changed behaviours, contributing to their leadership development.

This paper will present the emerging theory of learning to lead, making sense of leadership learning in practice.