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The American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) continues to guide and influence nursing leadership practice and leadership development. An important component of leadership development is defining the content and scope of desired and necessary leadership competencies. Leadership competencies represent the knowledge, skills, and abilities contributing to effective leadership. Competencies are used as a framework to facilitate the growth of the nurse leader and to assess progression and mastery. They reflect what leaders need to be able to do in their roles, how they treat and interact with others, and what tools they can draw from to be an effective leader.
AONL published the first set of Nurse Executive Competencies in 2005,
Nurse leaders can best prepare to face both current and future challenges by learning, experiencing, and mastering explicit leadership competencies.
Defining Leadership Competencies
Given the evolution and transformation of the health care landscape, AONL recognized in support of its mission to “transform health care through expert and influential nursing leadership” and vision “nursing leadership, one voice advancing health,” the need to frame leadership competencies around 1 defined set of core competencies to encompass and guide the practice of traditional, new, and emerging leadership roles. The resulting core competencies represent an integration of the existing competencies and the differentiation between core/foundational and functional competencies. These core competencies represent a distillation of leadership competencies individually assessable (i.e., measurable) and broad enough to be essential across the care continuum and at all levels of nursing leadership.
Subject matter experts reviewed each of AONL’s 5 sets of functional leadership competencies. Working within the established domains, they developed high-impact, core nursing leadership competencies that define a common language for all nurse leaders. The 6 nursing leadership domains (Table 1) encompass the depth and breadth of the nursing leadership specialty, across health care settings and leadership roles. Five of these domains (i.e., Communication and Relationship Building, Leadership, Knowledge of the Health Care Environment and Clinical Principles, Professionalism, and Business Skills and Principles) represent the original framework found in the current role-specific functional competencies. The sixth competency, Leader Within, was drawn from the AONL Nurse Manager Competencies, recognizing the influence and significance of experience and intrinsic motivation and understanding oneself is an essential part in becoming an effective leader.
Table 1Domains Within the Nursing Leadership Competencies
AONL Leadership Domain
AONL Nursing Leadership Competencies
AONL Nurse Executive Competencies
AONL System CNE Competencies
AONL Post-Acute Care Competencies
AONL Nurse Manager Competencies
AONL Nurse Executive Competencies: Population Health
Communication and Relationship Building
Leadership
Knowledge of the Health Care Environment and Clinical Principles
The 6 competency domains in the AONL Nurse Leader Core Competencies, approved by the AONL Board of Directors, are interrelated, provide a guide for personal development and assessment, and apply to the various levels and types of nursing leadership.
The AONL Nurse Leader Core Competencies (Figure 1) are concise, encompassing the effective actions all nurse leaders need to lead others, develop and refine the work environment, improve themselves and those around them, and achieve organizational goals. Additionally, AONL Nurse Leader Core Competencies provide the tools and resources for AONL’s strategic relationships—practice, academia, and industry.
Because the competencies are considered core leadership competencies, they should be translatable and inherent to nursing leadership roles across the continuum. The AONL Nurse Leader Core Competencies can be used as a framework and common communication platform for all nursing organizations and nursing educational programs to define the scope and standards for nurse leadership. All nurse leaders can use this key resource to personally assess the progression and mastery of each of the competencies as part of their leadership journey. These competencies can be expanded upon with functional competencies (when applicable) and tasks within organizations, as well as integrated into educational curriculums to prepare and further develop nurse leaders.
Ronda Hughes, PhD, MHS, RN, FAAN, is AONL senior director of professional practice in Chicago, Illinois and can be reached at [email protected] M.T. Meadows, DNP, MBA, CENP, is a consultant and former director of professional practice at AONL, Chicago, Illinois. Robyn Begley, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, is AONL CEO and American Hospital Association chief nursing officer and vice president of workforce in Chicago, Illinois.
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