Hannele Tiittanen, LicNSc, MSc(Educ.), RN

The author is working as a principal lecturer in Lahti University of Applied Sciences in Finland.

This is the first Nursing leadership blog in CNE Nursing leadership environment, and I am happy to have this chance to be the first writer in here. I wish that this blog will be actively read and written. This blog is a possibility to share the leadership best practices, ideas and innovations to support nurse leaders work and to develop nursing practice.
One of the ProInCa project’s aim is to promote the nursing leadership and management capacity building in medical universities and higher medical colleges’ nursing education in health care transition to improve the quality of health care system. During the ProInCa project different learning materials have been produced, for example nursing leadership learning materials are now ready for nursing educators to use in Center for Nursing Excellence platform, in Moodle course site. The learning materials are divided under four topics: Setting direction, Managing services and driving results, Professionalism and ethics and Leading people and teams. The nursing leadership materials consists of power point presentations, exercises, leadership tools, and reading materials to support the nursing leadership training and development. An important part of the learning materials are the leadership exercises. One of the exercises is for example challenging to think what your organizations’ vision for nursing would be. Strategic management is to define a vision and strategic goals based on environmental analysis. Vision describes the optimal desired future state of an organization: where and what direction an organization wants to go. Vision is a statement about what the organization is like for example in five years’ time. Vision is an image, a mental picture of the future organization. Strategic goals describe how an organization gets there, how the vision will be achieved. How would you define a vision for the nursing profession in your organization? And how would you define the steps to achieve the vision? Deputy chief nurses and chief nurses are in a key role in healthcare organizations to define the nursing vision and to make it visible not just in the organization, but also for the patients and clients the organization serves. Deputy chief nurses and chief nurses are also in a key role to implement the nursing vision to the practice. Building up strong and clear nursing vision statement supports nurses’ identity, provides motivation and inspires nurses. Nurses in leadership position should make nurses feel valued and supported so that they can work to their full potential and be proud to be nurses. A positive, encouraging working culture supports nurses to share their experiences openly, and they feel free to develop their practice and careers. Negative, punishment-based culture make nurses feel unappreciated and deny them possibilities to develop their work. (The Scottish Government 2017.) Good nurse leaders have a strong nursing vision, and they are competent to advocate and fight for the nursing in all situations. The vision of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership is “Nursing leadership – one voice advancing health”. Health care will be shaped through innovative and expert nursing leadership. (AONL 2019.)

Reference

AONL 2019: AONL Strategic Plan 2019-2021. American Organization for Nursing Leadership. https://www.aonl.org/system/files/media/file/2019/07/AONL%20Strategic%20Plan%202019-2021.pdf

The Scottish Government, 2017. Nursing 2030 vision. The Chief Nursing Officer’s long-term strategy to shape the future of the nursing workforce. https://www.gov.scot/publications/nursing-2030-vision-9781788511001/pages/1/

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