Succession Planning for the Future Through an Academic-Practice Partnership

Abstract

A global nursing leadership shortage is projected by the end of this decade. There is an urgent need to begin developing emerging nurse leaders now. This article describes the work of an academic-practice partnership collaborative of nurse leaders. The goal of the partnership is to develop and promote an innovative enhanced nursing administration master's program targeted to young emerging nurse leaders, who have not yet moved into formal leadership roles. An action research design is being used in program development and evaluation. Qualities needed by emerging leaders identified through research included a need to be politically astute, competency with business skills required of nurse leaders today, comfort with ambiguity, use of a caring approach, and leadership from a posture of innovation. The current curriculum was revised to include clinical immersion with a nurse leader from the first semester in the program, a change from all online to online/hybrid courses, innovative assignments, and a strong mentorship component. Eighteen young emerging nurse leaders began the program in January 2012. Early outcomes are positive. The emerging nurse leaders may be uniquely positioned, given the right skills sets, to be nurse leaders in the new age.

Use of Action Research in Nursing Education

“…Articles that focused on advanced-practice clinical or community health included using portfolios to prompt student self-evaluation of learning [63], developing a framework for organizational partnerships in midwifery education [55] and sharing qualitative data from meetings and focus groups in evaluating unpaid clinical supervision in a university setting [56]. Other graduate-related research included creating an alternative yet sustainable model of online learning through flexible curriculum design [75], critically examining the implementation of a specialist in nursing education postgraduate degree offered by 5 universities over 2.5 years [62]; integrating the humanities into graduate-level nursing education [39]; involving advanced-practice nursing students in faculty research [74]; incorporating research, evaluation, and reflection into daily teaching practice [38]; facilitating effective online student interactions [66]; mentoring young, emerging nursing leaders as a part of succession-planning [69]. These publications offer concrete examples of how an action research approach could enhance and enrich the graduate education experience.…”

Development and Validation of a Leadership Training Program for Nurses

“…The second part contained a list with teaching strategies and another with leadership development strategies found in the literature. [4][5][6] Both lists were scored by the respondents. The second followed an analogue scale (0-10), according to the importance given by the participants to each strategy.…”

Mixed Methods Development of a Leadership Framework for Generation Y Bedside Nurses

“…There is a lack of effective leadership in healthcare, which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) constitutes a global crisis (WHO, 2015). The healthcare workforce is said to be currently unprepared for the ever-increasing healthcare needs (Sherman, Dyess, & Prestia, 2013). Because healthcare delivery relies on good leadership, a lack thereof can have an enormous impact on patient outcomes (West et al, 2014).…”

“…They therefore have a key role to play in the provision of universal health coverage (Mitchell, 2015;WHO, 2013), especially at the point of care (Sherman & Pross, 2010). It is predicted that by the end of this decade, there will be a worldwide shortage of nurse leaders, which will be a key challenge to rectify (Dyess et al, 2016;Holland, 2015;Sherman, Dyess, & Prestia, 2013).…”

“…Interview questions (QUALI): The nine interview questions were developed by the researcher, using a number of sources, namely the RBC book (Koloroutis, 2004); interview questions created by Sherman, Dyess and Prestia (2013); the knowledge of the researcher as an experienced nurse leader; other expert nursing leaders; and the study objectives. Input was also sought from Generation Y nurses who undertook a pilot study.…”