Servant-Leadership in Nursing Education

Abstract

Recent changes in healthcare policy including the sentinel paper from the Institutes of Medicine, now known as the National Academy of Medicine, 2010 report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health and the most recent, The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity reports have demonstrated the changing role of nurses creating a growing need for nurse leaders. The healthcare industry is seeking to find a leadership style that will facilitate the goals of providing quality care in a collaborative environment. With its natural focus on service, the style of the servant-leader is one option. A literature critique of servant-leadership, nursing and nursing education revealed a lack of research in this area. The authors wrote this article to elucidate existing literature on the topic and discus why further research into the need to incorporate servant-leadership into nursing education is important to facilitate the advancement of the profession.