Nurse educators take lead in leadership research programme

I am part of a new journey in establishing a leadership development research programme within the context of a university. Its aim? To establish one of the niche areas of the School of Nursing at the University of the Western Cape. Over the last few years, the focus on leadership development has surfaced in many national health care documents. However, few research-based studies have been implemented in the public health care sector of South Africa. It was decided that self-leadership in professionalism would be the focus of our proposal.

A group of eight nursing lecturers gathered in Franshoek, near Cape Town, where we worked on developing a broad framework for the programme and establishing objectives. It was quite a challenge for so large a group to work together in writing one proposal. Apart from that, it was cold, with snow on the mountains around us—not a common phenomenon in Africa. But, what made the writing retreat a great success was the enthusiasm and commitment members showed in writing a proposal that could benefit the community of nurses in the Western Cape.

The Franshoek collaborators

Writing the proposal was, in itself, an opportunity to develop self-leadership. It served as a tool for helping individual participants think about their own self-leadership, in practice. Group discussions led to the realization that self-leadership expands one’s capacity to be effective, both in leadership roles and processes.

It was wonderful to observe how, in the process of developing a leadership research programme, participants assumed leadership roles and worked together in a productive and meaningful way.

Now, the next step—getting funding for the project!

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.