Date of Submission
1-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Health Science
Department
Health Sciences
First Advisor
Jill Moore, EdD, MHA, BSDH, RDH
Second Advisor
Elizabeth Francis-Connolly, PhD
Third Advisor
Celeste Milligan, PhD, PCC
MeSH
Nursing, Team; Patient Care Team
LCSH
Team nursing, Well-being, Leadership--Study and teaching
Abstract
Health sector literature advocates for leadership preparation to foster teamwork, thereby facilitating team wellbeing and improving team outcomes. The nursing profession occupies 59% of the global healthcare workforce, making it essential that nurse leaders are both proficient and effective. Statistics, however, demonstrate that 60% of frontline managers do not receive leadership training. Furthermore, the existing evaluations for competency-based healthcare leadership preparation have been limited to participant self-reports of improvement. What is not clearly understood are the performance outcome measures of leadership preparation, determined by the staff in their span of control, as indicated by the markers of wellbeing. These wellbeing markers include leadership trust, levels of stress, levels of anxiety, and burnout. In addition to negatively affecting team effectiveness and outcomes, negative indicators for these markers result in higher nursing vacancies and turnover rates. Also poorly understood is whether a nursing specific preparation or an interprofessional preparation methodology offers more positive results. For this study, participants were members of the Connecticut Nurses’ Association, solicited through the organization’s social media platforms using an anonymous survey. As a two-pronged quantitative study, inquiry was directed to entry-level nurse managers and to frontline nurses not in managerial positions. Results indicated a significant correlation between nursing leadership preparation and team wellbeing. Lower vacancy rates and turnover rates were also attributed to leadership preparation, although the type of leadership preparation did not factor into the effect. Given these findings, institutions across all sectors of healthcare should harness this information, using it as a driver to invest in developing and sustaining competency-based leadership preparation curricula to optimize their nursing workforce.
Recommended Citation
Barre, Kimberly, "Nursing Leadership Preparation: Exploring Value and Effects" (2025). Health Science Doctoral Thesis. 16.
https://digitalcommons.newhaven.edu/healthscidocthesis/16