Pilot Test of a Theory-Based Instrument to Measure Nursing Informatics Leadership Skills

Understanding organizational cultures helps leaders focus on the content, context and levels of perspective needed to be successful leaders in the area of nursing informatics. The Minnesota Nursing Informatics Leadership Inventory (MNILI) was developed to expand assessment options and tools in the area of nursing informatics leadership. This article describes the result of the pilot test of the instrument. Using an ordinal Likert scale (0 = not like me to 4 = very much like me), respondents rated 12 leadership skills associated with four types of cultures across four scenarios. Respondents preferred collaborative culture leadership skills across all scenarios and differentially preferred culture-specific skills by scenario. Overall, older and more experienced respondents were more satisfied as leaders (p = 0.003) and more often used a democratic leadership approach (empower and care about all voices; p = 0.012). In three of the four cultures, nursing informatics leaders reported preferred and collaborative leadership skills that matched the scenario. This study provides preliminary evidence for using the MNILI to assess the requisite variety of nursing informatics leadership skills. Further research is needed to understand the dynamic interactions between organizational culture and nursing informatics leadership that are informed by conscious leadership and attention to the requisite variety of leadership skills.