Innovation and leadership

editorial Roxane Spitzer, PhD, MBA, RN, FAAN

Innovation and Leadership This is the inaugural issue of a new and exciting journal, Nurse Leader. Our goal is to challenge current and future nursing leaders to think differently, confront the status quo, and design the future, while implementing essential changes each day. Our first guest editor, Tim PorterO’Grady, has always been several steps ahead of current wisdom. His vision includes the kind of nursing leadership that makes a positive difference both in the impact on patients and in the working conditions and satisfaction level of practicing nurses and nurse leaders. There are multiple strategies for developing and enhancing leadership abilities and skills. We all have heard about the common attributes of leaders, regardless of the type of business or service they represent. Some attributes of leaders are innovation and creativity, vision, risk-taking, and a high degree of emotional intelligence. Their monikers include change agent, systems thinker, communicator, decision-maker, team player, and politician. Honesty, integrity, trust, sensitivity, humor, and passion are among their basic characteristics. All of these traits are essential for the effective nurse leader, although some skills may need to be more prevalent at various points depending on the situation at hand. For example, in an entrepreneurial environment, the skills of risk-taking and creativity may be needed in more significant measure than those of communicating or being a change agent. Optimism, perseverance, and commitment are some of the more 4 Nurse Leader

important aspects of leadership that should be ever present. All of these concepts recognize the inherent complexity of the leadership role and the skills and abilities that are essential to meet current and future needs, concerns, issues, and vision. A perfect example is recruitment and retention. This time around it will take vision, creativity, and teamwork to shape a new future for nursing. We must learn from the past to mold the future. In this issue, I particularly want to point out the article by Marie Manthey because she has never wavered in her beliefs about the professional nurse’s role, function, and critical impact on patient care. The other articles share creative concepts from well-known and respected leaders in nursing; and we also feature an outstanding interview with Jolene Tornabeni, a leader who has paved the path for many. Nurse Leader will strive to inform you and solicit input about issues you are facing, challenges with which you would like assistance, networking opportunities to learn, and actions our current leaders are taking to address the multiple complexities we face. As a CEO, I share your belief in the critical value of nursing and nurse leaders addressing disparities in health care, alternative delivery systems, innovation in nursing practice and education, the financial and quality implications of recruitment and retention, teamwork to achieve patient outcomes, and so on ad infinitum. The task is onerous, the

challenge enormous, the rewards magnificent. We hope that this new journal will help us achieve a vision of excellence in nursing leadership that makes a difference today and for the future. Roxane Spitzer, PhD, MBA, RN, FAAN, is the editor of Nurse Leader and CEO of Hospital Authority of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County. She can be reached at roxane.spitzer@gh. nashville.org. 1541-4612/2003/$30.00 + 0 doi:10.1067/nrsl.2003.4

January/February 2003