Leadership Strategies for Improving the Nursing Shortage

Leadership Strategies for Improving the Nursing Shortage

Introduction

The nursing profession has faced many challenges throughout history. The most apparent today is the shortage of prepared nurses to meet the needs of the work force that can adequately meet the needs of healthcare consumers in the United States. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 2005) reported data available from a variety of studies on the nursing shortage that have consistently indicated the projected need for registered nurses by 2020 will range from approximately 400,000 to 1 million. This increased need will be impacted by the existing shortage of qualified nurse educators.

The AACN (2009) indicated the nursing faculty vacancy has reached 7.6%, or 1.8 faculty positions per reporting schools. The National League for Nursing (NLN, 2005) similarly reported the growing nursing faculty shortage has further impacted the number of qualified students being turned away from entering nursing schools. Without qualified nurses to fill vacant faculty positions, the education of future nurses needed to address the shortage will not be sufficient (AACN, 2005).

In addition, the lack of nurse leaders to fill vacant roles in both practice and academia has been overlooked and needs to be addressed. Current nursing leaders are aging and nearing retirement at an increasing rate without adequate concern for replacing or providing succession planning at the local, regional, and national levels. Efforts to address the nursing shortage have been focused on increasing the work force at the bedside and not the next generation of nurse leaders at all levels, particularly within nursing education. It is essential that leaders and researchers in nursing education understand the nursing profession faces not only a nursing and nurse faculty shortage but also a shortage of academic leaders.

The practices of exemplary leaders are those described as the five practices by Kouzes and Posner (2009). The five practices identified are modeling the Way, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Challenging the Process, Enabling Others to Act, and Encouraging the Heart. These exemplary practices are the basis behind the concept of transformational leadership described by Kouzes and Posner (2007) as being an observable and learnable set of practices. The more that can be learned about and understood with regard to these practices, the more effective the nurse education leader will be as a transformational leader who encourages others to follow through motivation in order to bring about effective change for the sake of the organization as a whole. Studies have not been conducted to include the leaders within nursing education to identify if the practices exhibited by the leaders are reflective of exemplary practices.

This lack of available knowledge indicates the need for further research to be conducted to include nursing education leaders. Nursing education is in crisis as it tries to meet the challenges of educating the next generation of nurses for an ever-changing healthcare system with dwindling numbers of nursing leaders prepared to take on the challenges that lay ahead. Nursing education leaders (current or future) who are ...