Building leadership capacity through coaching: A pilot professional development initiative for nurse faculty

Leadership development remains a critical need for emerging nurse leaders as academic and health care environments become increasingly complex and resource constrained. Nursing faculty are frequently expected to assume leadership roles with limited formal preparation or structured support. In response, a pilot coaching-based professional development program was designed and implemented with early-career nurse faculty in a single academic setting. The Advancing Collegiate Coaching for Excellence in Leadership (ACCEL) program combined individualized coaching with structured cohort-based learning, emphasizing strengths-based reflection, goal setting, and peer dialogue within a psychologically safe environment. Program outcomes demonstrated promising early impact. Leadership self-awareness and confidence were assessed using a 20-item self-report survey administered before and after participation, with mean scores increasing from 71.0 to 87.3 across all participants. Participants also reported high satisfaction and described greater confidence in their leadership identity, increased clarity regarding leadership strengths and growth areas, and enhanced engagement in academic roles. These findings suggest that ACCEL offers an ethically grounded and adaptable model for leadership development that can be applied across academic, clinical, and administrative nursing settings to strengthen leadership capacity and support professional sustainability.