Leadership in Nursing - Nursing leader’s tasks and outcomes of leadership – A descriptive literature review

Nursing teams play an important role in every health care institution. Teams require an effective team leader, who knows what is required when occupying a leadership position in order to make the team work effectively and produce positive results. The purpose of this thesis is to describe nursing leadership in the context of nurses leading a team in any health care institution that provides any level of care towards patients/clients. This study aims to be a tool to better understand what is involved in leading a successful team and what are the achievements good leadership can produce. A descriptive literature review was performed in this thesis process to find articles that identify and describe nursing leadership and its outcomes. Searches of electronic databases were conducted using set inclusion and exclusion criteria for article selection. In total, 17 papers underwent an inductive content analysis. The findings identify several different tasks that can improve the effectiveness of the leader in addition to the positive outcomes of good leadership. This thesis adds to the existing body of knowledge in two ways, it demonstrates that being a nursing leader is something more than just occupying a position and that effective leadership requires work and the fulfilment of certain tasks. Furthermore, it shows that when nursing leadership is successfully implemented it can positively impact staff and patients. The results of this study can potentially be used as a point of reference for future leaders when they occupy leadership positions