Background and objective: Organisations, including academic institutions, are moving away from the traditional top-down command and control leadership styles to a focus on internal leadership (self-leadership) of staff. In the absence of traditional external leadership, individuals with self-leadership skills and qualities can make smart decisions to achieve organisational success. Despite the availability of literature studies on nurses’ self-leadership, there is a dearth of studies addressing self-leadership in nurse educators. It is imperative that a study exploring nurse educators' perceptions regarding their self-leadership be conducted to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. This would assist in identifying the role that stakeholders play in creating an enabling academic environment that promotes the development, the practice, and supportive interventions of self-leadership. This study sought to explore and describe the perceptions of nurse educators regarding their self-leadership and how this can be facilitated in a nursing education institution (NEI) context.Methods: A qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive research design was used to provide an in-depth exploration of the perceptions of nurse educators regarding their self-leadership in an NEI setting. Four semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with purposively selected nurse educators, and audiotaped until data saturation resulted. The researcher and an independent coder analysed the data using Tesch protocols on thematic analysis. Lincoln and Guba’s strategies were used to achieve trustworthiness.Results: Two themes emerged, namely: nurse educators’ perceptions of self-leadership; and the facilitation of self-leadership in nurse educators.Conclusions: The nurse educators mirrored themselves as leaders in action and are aware of the importance of their engagement in self-leadership activities in learning and teaching. Facilitating self-leadership within nurse educators was perceived to be the responsibility of individual nurse educators, and to a certain extent their colleagues, and that of the institutional management team.
Background: Self-leadership has emerged as a leadership style that could be used to achieve successful performance for individuals and organisations, including higher education institutions. It is, however, not known how nurse educators perceive their self-leadership practices. Objective: To describe the self-leadership practices of nurse educators at nursing education institutions. Methods: This article reports the quantitative phase of a broader exploratory, descriptive, sequential mixed-method design study conducted with conveniently selected nurse educators (n=265) in two provinces in South Africa. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Results: Constructs found to be valid for self-leadership practices were autonomy-supportive environment, continuing professional development, role modelling, and shared leadership. Respondents perceived themselves to be engaged in self-leadership practices. The Cronbach alpha coefficient indicated the internal consistency of the constructs. Conclusion: Educational institutions should create environments that support autonomy and role modelling to facilitate the engagement of nurse educators in self-leadership practices.
Background and objective: There is a shortage of nurses in the country and worldwide, and the problem is compounded by the resignation of nurse educators. When nurse educators resign, they leave with their expertise and skills, thus compromising the provision of quality teaching and learning in the institution. It is imperative that a study to determine the factors contributing to the resignation of nurse educators be conducted. The aim of the study was to explore and describe the factors that contributed to the resignation of nurse educators at a Johannesburg nursing college in South Africa. Methods: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design was used to provide an in-depth description of factors that contributed to nurse educators resigning from a Johannesburg nursing college. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 purposively selected nurse educators, using audiotapes until data saturation. Data were analysed by the researcher and an independent coder using the Tesch protocols on thematic analysis. Trustworthiness was achieved using Lincoln and Guba’s strategies.Results: Three themes emerged, namely: experience of an unappreciative working environment; negative influences on the ‘self’ of the nurse educator; and the need for career advancement and professional growth.Conclusions: The provision of quality nursing education to produce nurses will be difficult in the face of nurse educators resigning from their posts. There is a need to implement retention strategies to create an appreciative working context for nurse educators in the institution.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.