A Leadership Toolkit for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals: From Student to Experienced Practitioner

This practical guide provides essential knowledge and tools for nursing and healthcare students and practitioners to develop their leadership skills, from the very beginning of their practice and throughout their careers.

The first section provides an overview of leadership in nursing and healthcare in today’s context, discussing:

• relevant theory, and values-based approaches such as congruent, compassionate and ethical leadership
• the role of nurses and healthcare professionals in policy, social justice and decision making, and how leadership positively impacts quality of patient care and the healthcare professions
• how we learn leadership skills, such as emotional and social intelligence, and experiential methods of learning, such as reflexivity, learning from experience and Action Learning

The second section looks at the role of emotions and experiential learning in leadership development, and methods such as action learning, reflexivity, lifelong journaling and the use of narratives and the arts, to introduce a range of practical tools and methods for the reader to use in their own development. Strategies for the less experienced practitioner and for the more experienced practitioner are presented, including action learning and promoting wellbeing, and the book also highlights the evidence base the methods draw on. This creative text introduces vital tools and uses reflective activities and questions to support readers in building their leadership skills.

It is ideal for students and practitioners at all levels in nursing and healthcare interested in self-development.

Alison H. James is a Doctor of Advanced Healthcare Practice and is currently Reader in Healthcare Leadership at Cardiff University, UK and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). She is a Registered Nurse with a background in neurosciences, critical care, osteoporosis and clinical research. Alison has taught across undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare programmes for over 20 years, has published and worked on leadership development projects internationally, and is an active qualitative researcher. Alison’s main interests are in research on leadership development and education in the healthcare workforce and how this impacts delivery and quality of patient care, with a focus on values-based leadership theory and models, and how this influences cultures within healthcare environments.