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Political Astuteness in Nurse Leadership: A Concept Analysis
Namadzavho Joyce Muswede1, Vhothusa Edward Matahela2
1Professional Practice Department, South African Nursing Council, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.
Aim:
To conduct a concept analysis of political astuteness in nurse leadership, clarifying its attributes, antecedents and consequences.
Design:
Concept analysis.
Data Sources:
Literature published between 1990 and February 2025 was searched in EBSCOhost, Emerald, ProQuest, Sabinet, SAGE and ScienceDirect.
Methods:
Walker and Avant's (2019) eight-step concept analysis framework was used to identify defining attributes, antecedents, consequences and empirical referents. Model and contrary cases were constructed to illustrate the presence and absence of the concept.
Results:
Analysis of 24 included sources identified defining attributes of political astuteness in nurse leadership, including strategic awareness, policy acumen, advocacy, stakeholder engagement and ethical reasoning. Antecedents included policy knowledge, emotional intelligence, governance exposure and experience of political environments. Reported consequences in the literature included stronger strategic and ethical decision-making, greater capacity for stakeholder alignment and increased potential to engage in policy and organisational influence.
Conclusion:
This concept analysis suggests that political astuteness is a relevant leadership capability in nurse leadership, particularly in contexts requiring policy engagement, stakeholder alignment and navigation of complex organisational environments. Clarifying the concept may support more coherent scholarship, leadership development and future empirical work in this area.
Implications For The Profession:
This study contributes conceptual clarity to political astuteness in nurse leadership and offers a basis for considering how political capability may be addressed in leadership development and nursing education. The findings may also inform future work on how nurse leaders are prepared for policy engagement, organisational influence and system-level leadership.
Reporting Method:
A PRISMA 2020 flow diagram was used to report the literature identification and selection process within this concept analysis.
Patient Or Public Involvement:
This study was a concept analysis; therefore, no patient or public involvement in its design, conduct or reporting was required.
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