Leadership Practices of Head Nurses: A Literature Review

Purpose: To explore the concept of leadership and the leadership practices of head nurses. Method: Literature review on articles retrieved from electronic databases was conducted. The review on leadership practices was set based on the setting of study, head nurses as participants of the study and the year of publication ranged from 2000-2011. Result: Based on previous studies, leadership ability to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of an organization. Effective leadership can enhances and play significant role in organizational performance. Head nurses play critical roles in health care organizations; therefore, they need to demonstrate leadership abilities. Head nurses who have leadership abilities can influence people toward the achievement of the organizational goals. Otherwise, head nurses should perform their leadership through implementation of the following five practices based on Kouzes and Posner (2001) which include: (1) challenging the process, (2) inspiring a shared vision, (3) enabling to act, (4) modeling the way, and (5) encouraging the heart. Therefore, nursing leaders must be aware of their important roles in taking the lead to face challenge in the modern health care service and can change everywhere they need to implement an effective leader in health care environment. Conclusion: This paper provided leadership of head nurses is very important to our nursing professions and changing health care organization. It is essential review the concept of leadership and leadership practices for exploring the performance leadership practices of head nurses.