The staff nurse perception of the nurse practitioner leadership role

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative descriptive study was to investigate staff nurses' perceptions of the leadership role of nurse practitioners (NP) in the acute care environment, and their potential as a source of leadership for frontline nurses. The following study was conducted at a large metropolitan university using a convenience sample size of30 registered nurses (n = 30). The study framework used was derived from the leadership philosophy of Kouzes and Posners' (2002) model of transformational leadership and the Canadian Nurses Associations' (2008) national framework for advanced nursing practice. Overall, participants perceived NPs as performing transformational leadership practice below the 20th percentile. Staff nurses perceived NPs to perform the leadership behaviours on the subscale enabling others to act "usually", and "seldom" on the subscale inspire a shared vision. The findings of this study enhance the understanding of the leadership role of the NP from the staff nurse perspective.