Elsevier

Nursing Outlook

Volume 55, Issue 4, July–August 2007, Pages 169-175.e4
Nursing Outlook

Article
Clinical practice
Differentiating nursing leadership and management competencies

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2006.10.002Get rights and content

As the foundation of evaluating content for nursing leadership and administration courses, leadership and management competencies were identified from a literature review of 140 articles published between 2000–2004. Similarities and differences among the competencies were assessed. A large intersection of common competencies was discovered, indicating a lack of discrimination between leadership and management competencies. Arguably, this fusion ignores the different purposes served by leadership and management. Alternately, the convergence of leadership and management competencies might reflect that traditional distinctions have narrowed. Nevertheless, ambiguity persists regarding essential leadership and management competencies and the way they are reflected in nursing curricula. If concerns about the work environment are to be remedied for patients and staff, nurse educators are urged to act quickly to identify requisite competencies and better align course content with them. This will better prepare nurse administrators to succeed in their arduous work.

Section snippets

Methods

The Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and MEDLINE were used to identify the literature over 5 years—from 2000–2004. In CINAHL, “administration” is a subheading within the subject heading “management”. Information in the scope note suggested using both management and administration in the search. Thus, the major search words—leadership, management, and administration—were each combined with additional subject headings—competencies, knowledge, skills, abilities,

A General Description of the Literature

Individuals from 16 disciplines authored these articles, reflecting a widespread interest in leadership and management. The first author was most often a nurse (n = 67), followed by individuals in business (n = 19), medicine (n = 14), and health care management (n = 8). Authors from psychology, pharmacy, physical therapy, respiratory therapy, theology, and veterinary practice (n = 1 each) also addressed competencies for leadership and management.

Most articles (n = 62) were published in nursing

Discussion

Both educational programs and professional nursing organizations address numerous leadership and management competencies, either directly or indirectly, in their curricular recommendations and standards statements. Questions arise, however, about the adequacy of these responses given the pace of change in today’s health care systems. In this analysis, leadership competencies were addressed almost twice as often as management competencies. Although this underscores the popularity of leadership,

Conclusion

Based on this analysis, the boundaries between nursing leadership and management competencies have narrowed. This narrowing blurs the differences traditionally noted between the 2, requiring new approaches to conceptualizing curricula. The challenge for educators becomes one of examining and revising curricula to ensure that course content will help students acquire the competencies they need to succeed in contemporary administrative positions.

There must be thoughtful, deliberate consideration

Bonnie Mowinski Jennings is an Independent Health Care Consultant in Alexandria, VA.

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