What does nursing leadership and management look like?

Many roles in the nursing profession require leadership skills, particularly in interpersonal communication, problem-solving, and quality improvement and safety. You’ll need to strike a balance between providing quality patient care while managing a variety of other tasks, or direct reports, in a healthcare environment. Let’s take a look at some of the qualities of good leadership and how to become a better nurse leader.

Effective leaders help to improve the performance of everyone around them. Nursing leaders help promote a safe and evidence-based practice environment in a healthcare setting — not only for healthcare professionals but also for patients and their family members.

Effective nursing leadership can impact individual career outcomes for many of a nurse’s fellow employees. Nurse leaders often help mentor less-experienced healthcare professionals, providing valuable on-the-job training and peer feedback to help them take next steps in their own careers.

These same nursing leaders also take pride in their work — and deliver safe and quality improvement outcomes — in ways that reflect well on practitioners or physicians who collaborate with them, as well as entire healthcare organizations.

Nursing leadership roles typically allow you to promote smooth facility operations while you advocate for better patient outcomes.

Here are a few leadership roles in nursing.

• Nurse supervisor — Nursing supervisors provide a bridge between hospital management and clinical care providers. As a nursing supervisor, you might lead nurses in providing services like medication, treatment and therapy.
• Clinical manager — Clinical managers help supervise a facility’s nursing staff. They strive to uphold strong standards in patient care, leveraging experience in a clinical role to make sure all patients receive adequate, correct care.
• Director of nursing — Nursing directors manage a facility’s nursing operations, including most other leadership staff on a nursing floor. They help create goals for nursing staff members and implement policies that promote efficiency, compliance and productive patient outcomes.

These nursing positions offer varying levels of leadership. Depending on your employer, education, certifications and years of experience, you might qualify for a role in nursing leadership.

Nursing leaders are like all other leaders: Each operates in a slightly different way. Depending on your personality and skill set, you might employ a particular leadership style in your nursing profession.

These are common leadership styles you might find in a nursing environment. While they may go by other designations, the standard styles include:

• Autocratic — Leaders make decisions after little to no input from direct reports. Autocratic leadership benefits experienced nursing leaders who might understand exactly how to proceed in a delicate or time-sensitive situation where patients need immediate care.
• Participative — Leaders field and consider feedback before reaching decisions. Democratic leadership is ideal for nursing leaders making decisions about schedules, shifts or conflicts that affect the entire nursing team.
• Transformational — Leaders exceed expectations to implement change that helps everyone realize a shared vision. Transformational leadership can help nursing leaders encourage nurses to be empathetic, particularly when dealing with patients who might have mental health challenges requiring extra care or sensitivity.
• Delegative — Leaders adopt a hands-off approach to leadership. Nursing leaders who use a laissez-faire leadership model are typically confident in the abilities of the nurses working under them, to the point where supervision isn’t always necessary.
• Transactional — Leaders use a reward and discipline system to encourage correct behavior. Nurses who use a transactional leadership style might work with younger individuals who may need more attention and who could benefit more from a system that prioritizes efficiency while correcting errors.
• Bureaucratic — Leaders prioritize company needs and rely on policies to keep team members in place. Nurse leaders often need to deploy a bureaucratic leadership style in situations where there’s little room for mistakes, particularly when patient outcomes are at stake.
• Servant — Leaders build strong relationships as they focus on individual needs. Nurses might use a servant leadership approach to create an environment where openness and growth of younger nurses are encouraged.

No matter the size of your next nursing clinic, or your individual nursing role, you can implement one or more of these leadership styles to become a more effective leader in your workplace.