Developing nursing leaders for the future: achieving competency for transformational leadership.

A re today’s nurses ready for the challenge of leading healthcare reform based on best practices and current evidence, ensuring safety and quality in all aspects of care, integrating principles of patient-centered care, and leading interprofessional teams while being fiscally responsible, ethical, caring, and compassionate caregivers? Although the question is complicated and multifaceted, the importance of ongoing leadership development from professional entry education to professional practice and enhancing professional practice at the bedside or in the board room must not be overlooked. Initial leadership development and ongoing education about the many dimensions of healthcare innovations are critical to providing nurses with the tools essential to fully engage in an interprofessional approach to healthcare reform (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2010). Leadership is defined in many different ways and has many dimensions. Strong leadership includes having a clear vision and communicating it clearly and passionately to inspire willing participants in the collaborative process of realizing the vision. It also includes providing information, knowledge, and other essential tools to all who share the vision and follow the path of achieving the vision. A leader is a visionary coach and guide with expertise in facilitating collaboration and coordinating personal, intellectual, financial, and other valuable resources while balancing the interests of multiple levels of customers and stakeholders and achieving optimal outcomes (BusinessDictionary.com, 2013). All oncology nurses are positioned in the current healthcare system to be team leaders for the comprehensive care of individuals throughout their cancer survivorship experience. The way oncology nurses approach care also equips them with the basic tools to provide vision for patient-centered care and complex coordination of care for cancer survivors. A report from the IOM (2010), entitled The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, recommended transformational changes in nursing education and practice, which position nurses to be a strong influence in shaping healthcare delivery systems, healthcare policy, and overall healthcare practices in the future. One specific recommendation is to prepare nurses at all levels to assume leadership positions. Several leadership competency models are in academia and practice and can be used for leadership development.