In using mentoring, coaching and action learning interventions, the focus should be on each participant's current role and everyday practice and on helping the participant to develop and demonstrate clinical leadership skills in these contexts.

No abstract

A national clinical leadership development programme was instituted for Irish nurses and midwives in 2010. Incorporating a development framework and leadership pathway and a range of bespoke interventions for leadership development, including workshops, action-learning sets, mentoring and coaching, the programme was introduced at seven pilot sites in the second half of 2011. The programme pilot was evaluated with reference to structure, process and outcomes elements, including individual-level programme outcomes. Evaluation data were generated through focus groups and group interviews, individual interviews and written submissions. The data provided evidence of nurses' and midwives' clinical leadership development through self and observer-reported behaviours and dispositions including accounts of how the programme participants developed and displayed particular clinical leadership competencies. A key strength of the new programme was that it involved interventions that focussed on specific leadership competencies to be developed within the practice context.

This study demonstrates that clinical leadership development can impact on service in distinct and identifiable ways. Clinical leadership development programmes should focus on the setting in which the leadership competencies will be demonstrated.

No abstract