Nursing Leadership Training: 5 Key Components
Nurse leaders are similar to the conductor of an orchestra. They lead their nurses and staff to perform as one, in harmony, setting the tempo to ensure the unit runs seamlessly and within budget to meet the needs of your patients and organization.
By providing strong nursing leadership training, you can help your leaders perform their job smoothly and expertly, just as a great symphony does. To assist you, we’ll review their role and responsibilities and provide efficient ways to train them in their role.
Nurse Leader Roles and Responsibilities
The role of a nursing leader is multidimensional. They serve as a clinical expert for their staff, administrator to their upper management, and liaison between the two groups so they may work in harmony to meet your organization’s mission and goals. They’re pivotal to the successful operation of their unit.
A leader’s background should include, at a minimum, a bachelor’s degree, two or more years of clinical experience, key leadership traits, and essential managerial qualities. Their responsibilities typically encompass, but are not limited to:
- Overseeing daily operations.
- Hiring and retaining staff.
- Assuring quality outcomes are achieved.
- Creating and maintaining departmental budgets.
- Cultivating healthy work environments.
5 Components of Effective Nursing Leadership Training
In this section, you’ll learn key elements to include when training your nurse leaders to be effective in their roles. Whether your nursing leaders are novices or experts, they’ll require professional development throughout their careers to remain competent, productive, and perform at the highest level. Investing in their education will expand their leadership toolkit and further enhance their value to your organization.
1. Leadership Toolkit
Good training begins by equipping your nurse leader with the tools to succeed. Ensure they understand their job description and meet with them regularly so they feel engaged and supported. Maintain an open-door policy, encouraging your leaders to discuss their ideas, questions, and concerns with you. Determine their strengths and weaknesses to help them build successes and make improvements.
In addition, provide your leaders with mentors they can lean on to aid them in strategizing solutions for problems commonly encountered in their job. Also, consider sponsoring their certification training and costs for Certified Nurse Manager and Leader or Nurse Executive board certification once they gain the necessary experience.
2. Human Resources (HR) Management
Legal liability is intrinsic to leading a nursing department that provides care to residents or patients. Without understanding government rules and laws, your nurse leaders can potentially be walking a legal tightrope without even realizing it. The best way to mitigate this risk is to incorporate HR fundamentals into your nursing leadership training. This can be done through your internal department or an external class, but it should address the following needs:
- Resident and patient safety
- Federal and state regulations compliance
- Compensation and benefits
- Training and development
- Labor relations, unemployment, dismissal, or termination
- Equal employment opportunity and affirmative action
- Workplace culture, accountability and fairness, and cultural diversity
3. Financial Management
For your nursing management team to meet or improve your organization’s bottom line, they require sound financial knowledge. This includes understanding and applying general principles in budgeting, purchasing supplies, reimbursement, and staff forecasting. With the high costs of staffing and nursing turnover, reinforcing this type of education can help avoid any budget mishaps.
The American Organization of Nursing Leadership (AONL) has developed a finance and business education program for leaders. This program helps your nursing leader build the financial knowledge necessary for responsible leadership in healthcare.
4. Quality and Safety
Nurse leaders can significantly influence healthcare quality measures, patient experience and outcomes, and nurse job satisfaction and retention. You can improve your Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ratings by centering your nursing leadership training on quality improvement and safety, which in part determines your score.
Encouraging your leaders to develop strong interpersonal qualities and allowing them to set a healthy tone for their department cultivates a positive environment. Backing their policy implementation against incivility, bullying, and harassment goes a long way to help protect your staff in feeling secure within your organization. For more ideas on creating a safe, empowering, and satisfying workplace, you can direct your leaders to resources available through the American Nurses Association (ANA).
5. Influential Authority
Influential leaders understand, inspire, lead, and advocate for their teams. Training your leaders how to embody these qualities is essential to their role. They need to communicate well, be confident in providing daily decisions and guidance, feel comfortable resolving conflicts with patients and among staff, and be adept with change management given the constant fluctuations in healthcare.
Nurturing a nursing leader does not happen overnight. These qualities will take time to develop and require years of experience to flourish. The ANA and AONL provide education and training to help your leaders excel and be effective in their management roles.
Want More Resources to Support Your Nurse Leaders?
Providing comprehensive nursing leadership training is a great way to encourage, protect, and retain your leaders. Learn more ways to support your director of nursing, build a management team, fix short staffing, and much more, with the latest free healthcare insights and tips from IntelyCare.