Leadership Practices of Nurse Practitioners

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine the self-reported leadership
practices of Nurse Practitioners.

METHODOLOGY
Data for this study were collected during the annual conference of the American College of Nurse Practitioners (ACNP); where 141 nurse practitioners (NP) completed the Leadership Practices Inventory and provided demographic information. The typical respondent was female (88%), Caucasian (86%), 48 years old, holding a master’s degree (60%), a Family NP certificate (60%), and having an average of 22 years of experience. Internal reliability for the LPI in this study was .75 for Model, .87 for Inspire, .77 for Challenge, .88 for Enable and Encourage.

KEY FINDINGS
The most frequently engaged in leadership practices were Model and Challenge, followed by Encourage, Enable and Inspire. There were no significant correlations between any of the five leadership practices and the demographic variables of age, years of experience as an RN and years of experience as a NP. Males reported significantly higher frequency of Enabling than females but the differences were not significant for Model, Inspire, Challenge and Encourage.

"Based on the findings, this researcher concludes that NPs consider leadership practices to be part of their nursing and professional role" (p. 90).