ABSTRACT
Nursing has a foundational commitment to leadership. The question however is what exactly leadership ‘is,’ what are its characteristics, how does it manifest, what are its outcomes – in short, how can/do we know it when we see it? Is leadership a distinct attribute that nursing manifests to better enact its professional practice? Or is there a unique conceptualization of ‘nursing leadership’ that can be distinguished from ‘leadership?’ In this chapter, Miriam Bender provides an overview of traditional conceptualizations of leadership and shows how leadership, while ostensibly viewed as a process (i.e., leading), is in actuality operationalized as a competency that an individual nurse has. Process philosophy as a generative lens with which to examine and understand nursing leadership as a process is introduced and empirical research on clinical nurse leadership is recruited to illustrate how leadership, when conceptualized as a relational process, can be observed, modeled, and tracked. In particular, its variability across different systems, which enables inquiry into its complex dynamics, is emphasized. This way of orientating to leadership in/and nursing has the potential to produce conceptually clear understandings that can be taught to students and manifested through practice.
