Leadership qualities faculty desire in academic leaders: An international Delphi study

The global nursing workforce is confounded by shortages of nurses, faculty, and academic nursing leaders. Nursing academic leaders influence faculty recruitment and retention influencing the enrollment pipeline to fill nurse workforce capacity.

To identify leadership qualities nursing faculty prefer in nursing academic leaders globally.

A multi-country exploratory design employed a three-round Delphi process including Demographic Data and open-ended questions.

An online Qualtrics survey was emailed to schools of nursing selected from seven global regions: United States (North America), Mexico (Latin America/ Caribbean), South Africa (Africa), Saudi Arabia (Middle East), Korea (Asia), Sweden (Europe), and Australia (Oceania).

A convenience sample of faculty members employed in schools of nursing in the seven countries.

A 43-item Qualtrics survey developed from literature review of leadership qualities of nursing academic leaders was distributed to nursing faculty who participated in three Delphi rounds using descriptive statistics to analyze each round. Open-ended questions were analyzed using qualitative descriptive analysis.

In Round 1, 54 faculty rated the 43 leadership qualities using a Likert Scale, identified the top 10, and added additional qualities not in the list. In Round 2, 26 of the original participants rated the resulting 29 leadership qualities. In Round 3, 16 of the original participants ranked their top 8 leadership qualities: mutual trust and respect; clear communication; creating a cohesive culture; assuring diversity, equity, and inclusivity; integrity; developing effective team structure; effective decision-making; and leading by example. In Round 3 participants rated nurses' preparedness for academic leadership. Open-ended questions identified 1) Strategies to prepare nurses for academic leadership roles and 2) Essential characteristics for effective academic leaders.

Developing key leadership skills can increase the leadership capacity of nursing academic leaders, enhancing work environments, faculty recruitment and retention, helping mitigate a global challenge.