A Transformational Leadership Program: A Necessity in Today’s Healthcare Environment

A Transformational Leadership Program: A Necessity in Today’s Healthcare Environment Abstract Objective The purpose of this study was to enhance the transformational leadership capabilities of the nursing leaders in a small community hospital by implementing a leadership development course. Background Effective nurse leaders are critical in today’s fast-changing and uncertain healthcare environment. Competent leaders positively influence the nursing work environment, staff retention, patient safety, financial viability and quality outcomes. The development of a transformational skill set needed for a nurse leader to successfully lead a team to high-quality patient care. Methods Pre/post intervention design, using the Leadership Practices Inventory with 41 hospital leaders. Results An increasing trend in all self-assessed leadership practices (Self LPI) was observed post intervention with ‘modeling the way,’ ‘inspire a shared vision,’ and ‘encourage the heart’ (P \u3c 0.05), ‘challenge the process’ and ‘enable others to act (P \u3c 0.00). The manager/supervisor assessed leadership (Manager LPI) was statistically significant (P \u3c 0.00) in all of the leadership constructs. The co-worker assessed leadership (Co-worker LPI) all increased in mean scores. The ‘enable others to act’ construct was close to demonstrating statistical significance (P = 0.05). ‘Inspire a shared vision’ was the only statistically significant result within the Direct Report LPI (P \u3e0.02). Conclusion Transformational leadership skills can be taught and integrated into leadership practice with focused training, specifically in the participants and their supervisor’s perception of their transformational leadership practices