Developing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Nursing Leadership Mentoring Pilot Program

Area of Science:

• Nursing Leadership
• Organizational Psychology
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• New nurse managers often lack adequate mentoring support.
• Effective leadership is crucial for healthcare quality, safety, and staff retention.
• The Hale Mentoring Up theoretical framework provides a foundation for leadership development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a structured mentoring program for new nurse leaders.
• To identify key attributes that foster successful nurse mentoring relationships.
• To explore barriers and facilitators in nurse leadership mentoring.

Main Methods:

• A pilot program involving 15 mentor/mentee pairs.
• Six training sessions based on the Hale Mentoring Up framework.
• Qualitative data collection through surveys and focus groups, analyzed using NVivo 12.

Main Results:

• Positive mentoring relationships were facilitated by strong interpersonal skills (trust, flexibility, learning) and organizational skills (internal/external relationship building).
• Time emerged as a significant barrier to effective mentoring.
• The program provided valuable educational intervention and support for new nurse leaders.

Conclusions:

• A structured mentoring program can effectively support new nurse leaders.
• Developing interpersonal and organizational skills is vital for successful nurse mentoring.
• Addressing time barriers is essential for optimizing nurse leadership mentoring programs.